Glasshouse

by Charles Stross

When Robin wakes up in a clinic with most of his memories missing, it doesn't take him long to discover that someone is trying to kill him.

It's the twenty-seventh century, when interstellar travel is by teleport gate and conflicts are fought by network worms that censor refugees' personalities and target historians. The civil war is over and Robin has been demobilized, but someone wants him out of the picture because of something his earlier self knew.

On the run from a ruthless pursuer and searching for a place to hide, he volunteers to participate in a unique experimental polity, the Glasshouse. Constructed to simulate a pre-accelerated culture, participants are assigned anonymized identities: it looks like the ideal hiding place for a posthuman on the run. But in this escape-proof environment Robin will undergo an even more radical change, placing him at the mercy of the experimenters, and of his own unbalanced psyche . . .

• ISBN10: 074812411X
• ISBN13: 9780748124114
• Publish Date: 4 November 2010 (first published 1 June 2006)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Orbit
• Edition: Digital original
• Format: eBook (EPUB)
• Pages: 400
• Language: English

Reviews

[adastra]

This is one of the most imaginative sci-fi stories I have encountered. Similar to Cory Doctorow, Stross knows no boundaries when it comes to imagining the future.

The book is about a 27th century war veteran named Robin, wearing a male body (it is common to back yourself up and change bodies as desired). To deal with his past in the war, he underwent memory surgery and is now not entirely sure who exactly he is. But he soon finds out that his former self volunteered to take part in a "glasshouse", a closed experimental research society set in the "Dark Ages" (late 20th century). This is were he wakes up - confused, disoriented, and stuck in the body of a frail woman, assigned the name Reeve.

This book is one of the rare ones which kept me reading non-stop. Reeve's descriptions of the dark ages are very amusing, and as the conspiracy around the glasshouse unfolds, the book gets ever more captivating.

[wyvernfriend]

This is an interesting story about some people who agree to participate in an experimental polity, the glasshouse in a future that includes teleports for interstellar travel. Robin is fleeing from a ruthless pursuer and has to work at staying alive as well as trying to understand what the world he's in is all about.

It's interesting but just not me.