Yeah, on a second reading, still not that fab. "The AI manipulated everybody so that nobody had any real agency," is actually a really dull concept and it's at least the third time Stross has used it. Additionally the story story stops with heaps of loose ends and not much clarity about what's reall...
~~Moved from GR~~ Can't finish. Gahhhhh. It seems like a very cool concept--a noir police procedural set in a near future where actual and virtual realities have been melded. But the writing. It is multi-narrator, present-tense, second-person narrative. Whyyy! I mean, I know I'm rigid about narrat...
I've thought about it long enough; despite the somewhat uncomfortable second-person perspective, I like Rule 34. A lot. Stross has built an interesting near-future police force, and the plot delivers enough interesting twists to keep the pages turning.
Starts out more clever that interesting, though the prose is always charming (in it's particular foul mouthed way) and does a lot to carry the otherwise drab first half. Somewhat to my surprise, then the plot and characters start working together to tell a story and it actually gets good. Neat twist...
Log in with Facebook 
