Halting State (Halting State Series #1)

terrific science fiction thriller

In 2012 China, India and Europe battle to become the world¿s economic superpower due to the continuation of Bush economic policies. The United States faces federal bankruptcy as the debt can no longer be covered by foreign borrowing and no leader has the guts to raise taxes and cut spending. In England, Edinburgh Police Sergeant Sue Smith and London based forensic accountant Elaine Barnaby are looking at a complex convoluted scheme to abscond funds from the international company Hayek Associates. The unknown crook cleverly moves money through a virtual reality allegedly safe bank Avalon Four. Elaine realizes she needs a special programmer who can hack any system, but is too stupid to be more than a basement mushroom. She picks Jack Reed to catch a thief. --- This is a terrific science fiction thriller that paints a potentially realistic nightmare of the near future as the Bush legacy will prove to be an economic and technological wasteland. The fun in this delightful one sitting tale (in spite of it being 352 pages) is with the virtual world filled with fantasy species that irritate users. Effortlessly changing viewpoints between the lead trio so that readers observe the same issue from differing biases, HALTING STATE is a fabulous cautionary tale that warn s if we fail to act now, the American century will become real only in virtual reality fantasy games. --- Harriet Klausner

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Anthing Charles Stross

Stross is an excellent writer and I read all of his work.

Deserves three thumbs up

This near-future story is about a bank robbery that exposes a whole lot more.

In Edinburgh, Scotland of the year 2018, a high-tech company called Hayek Associates suffers a bank robbery. A senior officer of the firm panics, and calls the local police, instead of taking care of things internally. Things get weird when Sergeant Sue Smith is told that the robbery took place inside a virtual reality games called Avalon Four. Forgetting for a moment that this is supposed to be impossible, Hayek Associates is about to have its Initial Public Offering of stock. If word gets out, the company (and its virtual economies) will crash hard. This may not be your average bank robbery, but the amount of money involved, over 26 million Euros, is very real.

Elaine Barnaby, a London-based forensic accountant, is sent to Edinburgh to audit the bank from the inside. The unspoken part is that, if anything goes wrong, her firm will plead ignorance, and her neck will be on the chopping block. She is provided with a guide through the world of online gaming named Jack Reed, who, coincidentally (or not so coincidentally) became unemployed the week before.

Very Important People in newly independent Scotland are interested in the case, including the Scottish equivalent of the FBI. Brussels (the home of the European Union) gets involved in the case. There are Chinese hackers involved, who may or may not be assisted by Chinese State Security. Copspace, a sort of private VR database system for the police, which is supposedly secure, gets hacked. It is a world where everyone has access to the Internet through their eyeglasses. There is even a zombie flash mob.

I understood very little of the technical parts, because I know nothing about online gaming, but I loved reading this book. It is very cool and cutting edge, and works quite well as a straight thriller. If I could, I would give this book three thumbs up.

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