By Hannu Rajaniemi

I’ve had the sequel to this sitting on my TBR pile for a looong time, but I knew I had to reread this first hence the procrastinating. I wasn’t delaying because I was worried, just that rereading sometimes feels so decadent…

Anyway I’ve done it now and if anything this book has improved with a second reading. I did love it the first time but remember feeling hopelessly and helplessly lost a few times. That was largely gone on this reading not because I remembered things – I didn’t because I basically never do – but because I remembered it making sense so I had confidence in it and myself. I did also remember just a few things after my memory was jolted which certainly helped. 

So there’s a thief, and someone who needs help; there’s a colony in Mars where everyone has extreme privacy measures and you get to choose who sees what – plus Time is currency. There’s been serious inter-solar-system issues with humanity splitting into many different factions and there are some very serious questions about what is real and whether you can even ask that question my god you’re so baseline human urgh. Brains can be hacked and bodies can be hacked and sometimes bodies are just a costume. But seriously there’s something that needs to be stolen and that’s what matters.
Memory, reality, time, love, death. All the good bits