2007 books

[peteryoung]

39) Charles Stross, Glasshouse, 2006
I've never been good at predicting Hugo winners – sometimes it's the blatantly populist choice (Harry Potter, ffs), other years like last year something considerably more deserving and science fictional gets the nod (Robert Charles Wilson's Spin – still yet to read). This year autopope is up for another Hugo novel nomination, vying for the rocket with, among others, Vernor Vinge (Rainbow's End) and Peter Watts (Blindsight).

Glasshouse is energetic, lively and considerably good fun, yet set against a very dark background. Robin, a long-lived, post-human historian/soldier, is forced by circumstance to enter an 'archaeological' historical reality experiment of present-day lives lived under the magnifying glass, designed to illuminate a missing piece of human history post-1950 up to the Singularity some time in the 21st century. Now living as 'Reeve', he/she believes him/herself to be on the run from persons unknown, yet presumably now safe inside the closed experiment things gradually become much more sinister amidst the domestic dramas of life as a middle class 20th century housewife, while also trying to ascertain the real identities of certain other 'inmates'. The gender issues Stross raises here are generally kept light, or at least not dwelled upon at any great length other than in a gruesome and protracted off-screen rape, mostly preferring to treat the inevitable issues of gender disparities and stereotypes with a typical cynicism. How the pre- and post-Acceleration eras intertwine each other is often complex and necessarily rooted in Stross's own imagination and perception of how a post-human universe would work. These threads are deftly kept distinct even when they rub up against each other, partly by how Stross writes over the head of his narrator, Robin/Reeve, often giving us in-jokes that play on that future period's ignorance of our missing piece of history the experiment is designed to explore, with allusions and references to Tiptree, Cordwainer Smith and perhaps predictably The Prisoner. Conversely, with allusions to pre-Singularity concepts that ordinary post-humans wouldn't use as linguistic currency but that probably only a far-future historian would be aware of, Robin/Reeve is seemingly not writing for posterity but instead is writing for his/her remote ancestors, us.

In its melée of layered, missing, revealed and intertwined identities, marginal aliens and an all-pervading surveillance society, Glasshouse also has the distinct veneer of a 'better-realised then cinematised' Philip K. Dick idea, which is no bad thing in the hands of a writer of Stross's obvious energy and skill. Even with the common science fictional liberties of major body modification, gender-switching and rehabilitated consciousness, the essentials of post-human nature would appear to Stross to be, at least on the strength of the emotional content of Robin/Reeve's narrative, basically little or no different than they are today. And Glasshouse is, as usual for Charlie, packed with far-reaching and big ideas. A very likeable and very approachable book indeed despite its darker depths, and if it does win this year's 'best novel' Hugo I won't be in the least bit surprised.