Charles Stross Glasshouse

Glasshouse

Charles Stross

Ace, Jul 2006, $24.95

ISBN 0441014038

In the twenty-seventh century the Censorship Wars that released the destructive Curious Yellow virus destroying the wormhole gates that connected humanity throughout the universe has finally ended. However, though the cosmos wide civil war is over the impact on millions perhaps billions remain strong and will continue to affect everyone involved as t demobilizing the armed forces begins in earnest.

Many like Robin wake up one day to realize that they have had their wartime activities erased from their memories. Robin assumes he had a mind wipe to forget the atrocities. However, he changes his mind when someone tries to kill him because he assumes that the enemy believes he retained certain war year memories that his unknown adversary wants permanently eradicated with his death. Needing time to clear his thoughts and remain safe, Robin enlists in the Glasshouse reenactment experiment to recreate Earth's darkest era, the mid to late twentieth and early to mid twenty-first centuries. Robin is cast as one of humanity's most scorned vocations, a suburban housewife. He begins to slowly grasp why someone wants him dead and that the Glasshouse converted prison that locked away mentally disturbed war criminals now hosts spies and soldiers not friendly to a suburban housewife starting to remember.

This is an incredible science fiction that will receive plenty of accolades and make the short list as one of the top genre novels of the year. Robin is a fabulous protagonist struggling against a mysterious foe who seems always a step ahead of him in their cat and mouse encounters. The storyline is action-packed but goes deep into the psyche of person using futuristic cultural anthropologic satire to jab at modern day concepts. Fans know Charles Stross is a superb author, but as good as ACCELERANDO and the Singularity tales are, GLASSHOUSE is his best work to date.

Harriet Klausner