28 November 2012

The Fractal Prince; Hannu Rajaniemi

I'd read Rajaniemi's first book in this series, The Quantum Thief, a little over a year ago and have been anxious for the follow-up. Where the first riffed on themes of presence as identity--common in posthuman lit--this worked through story as identity, modeling it's chapters after those stories in The Arabian Nights. This has the same fire hose of information as the first but with a different character: the primary setting is Earth gone desert and infested by nanotechnology that can both steal your mind (through stories) and subvert your body to destructive growth. Perhaps more moody than the first?

It's an effort not to be irritated by a book that demands multiple readings and earns them.

The Fractal Prince
The Fractal Prince; Hannu Rajaniemi
[ posted by sstrader on 28 November 2012 at 12:11:33 AM in Current Interests , Language & Literature | tagged finland, posthuman ]