About the Author

Charles Stross was born in Leeds, England in 1964. He holds degrees in pharmacy and computer science, and has worked in a variety of jobs including pharmacist, technical author, software engineer, and freelance journalist. He is now a full-time writer.

Reviews

The censorship wars-during which the Curious Yellow virus devastated the network of wormhole gates connecting humanity across the cosmos-are finally over at the start of Hugo-winner Stross's brilliant new novel, set in the same far-future universe as 2005's Accelerando. Robin is one of millions who have had a mind wipe, to forget wartime memories that are too painful-or too dangerously inconvenient for someone else. To evade the enemies who don't think his mind wipe was enough, Robin volunteers to live in the experimental Glasshouse, a former prison for deranged war criminals that will recreate Earth's "dark ages" (c. 1950-2040). Entering the community as a female, Robin is initially appalled by life as a suburban housewife, then he realizes the other participants are all either retired spies or soldiers. Worse yet, fragments of old memories return-extremely dangerous in the Glasshouse, where the experimenters' intentions are as murky as Robin's grasp of his own identity. With nods to Kafka, James Tiptree and others, Stross's wry SF thriller satisfies on all levels, with memorable characters and enough brain-twisting extrapolation for five novels. (July) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Demobilized after the latest civil war, Robin awakens in a clinic with most of his memories gone, a new identity, and an assassin on his trail. To hide from his pursuer, he joins an experimental community, the Glasshouse, to study life in an older culture-that of Earth in the final years of the 20th century. He attempts to settle in to his new world only to find that, even in a protected environment, he is not free from danger. Hugo Award winner Stross (Singularity Sky) takes an original and often playful approach to his visions of the future. He examines questions of identity, gender, and the human condition in the context of this sf thriller, which belongs in most libraries. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

"The act of creation seems to come easily to Charles Stross...[He] is peerless at dreaming up devices that could conceivably exist in six, sixty, or six hundred years' time." - The New York Times

"A NEW WORK OF CREDIBLE AND BOLD SF." - Science Fiction Weekly "A world in which new ideas drip from every page." - Revolution Science Fiction "Stross's latest and best (so far) novel...A twisty, engrossing, and very well-done paranoia thriller." - SF Site "Where Charles Stross goes today, the rest of science fiction will follow tomorrow."--Gardner Dozois, Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine"A new kind of future requires a new breed of guide--someone like Stross."--Popular Science