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The stakes are high, eventually with the continued existence of the universe on the line. It is peopled with a variety of types of creatures, virtual and otherwise, from deeply different cultures.

It is writ over a large canvas of the solar system (and many virtual worlds). What is it I love so much about the books and, in particular, The Quantum Thief? Let’s break it down a bit: the narrative is the poster-child of epic. (For a slightly more detailed synopsis, go here.) He’s set free by an Ooratian warrior and her trusted AI-enabled ship.

This isn’t hell, but it’s the next best thing to being there it makes Groundhog Day look idyllic. Yet he is “resurrected” in this virtual world to play again and again. It is a game he cannot win one in which failure means being shot and going through the process that entails. So it all begins with our gentleman thief in a dilemma prison playing out endless iterations of a dilemma. In this post, I’ll review The Quantum Thief with separate posts reviewing the subsequent novels. May the book be thoroughly enjoyed without it? By all means. Does it add some to the experience? Absolutely. In other words, you do not need to get every reference to enjoy this book. It is a geek’s paradise, but not reserved strictly for geeks.

You really do have everything here, whether it’s a an aside to Sherlockian quote or references to particle physics, string theory, game theory, quantum mechanics and logic puzzles. I fear that a number of people might be intimidated by Hannu Rajaniemi’s series due to the sheer volume and esoteric nature of Mr. Knowledge of those things certainly adds layers of enrichment, but it is not essential to enjoying the story. I could thoroughly enjoy the descriptions of Game Theory puzzles without ever knowing anything about Game Theory, Hawking drives without knowing anything about blackhole event horizons, and gentlemen thieves without ever having read M. The truly stunning accomplishment of this series is that he melds all of this together as a seamless whole that makes sense. It would be amazing if he could have a spaceship that has more personality than its captain, and he does. It would be coolly retro if he could loosely base a character on a 19 th century French gentleman thief (Maurice Leblanc’s Arsène Lupin), and he does. It would be geeky cool if he could toss off some references to quantum theory and, oh, does he. It would be enough if he had rich, vibrant, palpable detail in his books and he does. It would’ve been enough if he could tell a good tale, and he does. There is so much to love in Hannu Rajaniemi’s books. In this series, we have The Quantum Thief, The Fractal Prince, and The Causal Angel.