The Fractal Prince

by Hannu Rajaniemi

Overview

"The good thing is, no one will ever die again. The bad thing is, everyone will want to."

A physicist receives a mysterious paper. The ideas in it are far, far ahead of current thinking and quite, quite terrifying. In a city of "fast ones," shadow players, and jinni, two sisters contemplate a revolution.

And on the edges of reality a thief, helped by a sardonic ship, is trying to break into a Schrödinger box for his patron. In the box is his freedom. Or not.

Jean de Flambeur is back. And he's running out of time.

In The Fractal Prince, Hannu Rajaniemi's sparkling follow-up to the critically acclaimed international sensation The Quantum Thief, he returns to his awe-inspiring vision of the universe…and we discover what the future held for Earth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780765336798
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/21/2014
Series:	Jean le Flambeur , #2
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.50(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

HANNU RAJANIEMI is from Finland and lives in California. He served as director of a think tank providing business services based on advanced math and artificial intelligence. He holds a Ph.D. in string theory.

Editorial Reviews

Intimidating sequel to The Quantum Thief (2011), Rajaniemi's spectacular, paranoid-conspiracy, hard sci-fi whodunit debut.” —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Intimidating sequel to The Quantum Thief (2011), Rajaniemi's spectacular, paranoid-conspiracy, hard sci-fi whodunit debut. Thief extraordinaire Jean le Flambeur owes his continued existence to the Oortian warrior Mieli, her intelligent spaceship Perhonen, and her mysterious patron, the pellegrini. To pay the debt, he must execute another impossible heist: to loot the mind of a member of the Sobornost, the upload collective that rules Earth and whose ultimate goal is total control of reality itself. His target is Matjek Chen, the oldest of the Sobornost "chens," or avatars. On Earth, meanwhile, the Lady Tawaddud of House Gomelez, rulers of the Sirr, a city built out of the Shard, the habitable fragments of a vast crashed Sobornost spaceship, must solve a murder that threatens the ruling council. She will need help from Sumanguru, a sort of detective Sobornost avatar who, like all his kind, is vulnerable to the wildcode which swarms in from the desert. Tawaddud's father, Cassar, has selected a husband for her, but she trusts him even less than her sister Dunyazad, who seems less interested in solving the murder than keeping Tawaddud in her place. Above it all, seemingly, the Sobornost conduct their Great Game against the mysterious zoku, who manifest as magnificent jewels and have solved problems the Sobornost are unable to. This is all set forth within complex, intricately structured stories-within-stories, neologisms that yield meaning only after many repetitions and changes of context, and never a word of explication to smooth the way. Formidably challenging, with few of the thrills and spills that made the predecessor volume such a delight--would that Rajaniemi had kept at least some of his vast intellectual capacity tucked out of sight--but, mostly, rewarding. Something like Ted Chiang meets John C. Wright, moderated by Stephen Hawking.

Kirkus Reviews