I had previously read Charles Stross' Accelerando which I had a mixed reaction to. Halting State comes across much, much stronger.

I should start with the negative (at least for many people. The second person narrative is distracting. I'm not sure what the purpose of it really was from Stross' perspective, but it took me quite a while to filter it out and get on with enjoying the story.

And there is a lot to enjoy with this story. The setting seems to have been picked specifically to appeal to my interests and background.

The notion of a robbery in an MMORPG affecting real life is a fascinating one as are Stross' speculations of how both corporations and the government might start to interact in a much more fluid online space than the traditional world wide web.

The real world setting of Edinburgh of course appealed to me hugely. Stross has a more description heavy style than I usually enjoy but he used it to great effect bring to mind the streets of Edinburgh and of course I got a personal satisfaction from picking up a lot of his smaller geographical references.

I do wonder how well a book like this translates outside of even Scotland. The language is authentic and most of England doesn't entirely get Scottish slang. Similarly how many people who haven't regularly frequented Edinburgh would get a reference to LRT (Lothian Regional Transport) as being bus related? It's nice though and I'm glad he didn't tone down the language for other markets because the result is a story that absolutely exists physically and culturally in Edinburgh.

Set in 2018 and written 2008 there are of course already areas where the story has dated. Not least it's assumption of Scottish independence (well we may get there soon). But I did find the references to something that is remarkably close to Google's "glasses" product amusing.

The story really only focuses on three characters, although others make an appearance. And of those only two get what you would call a satisfying character arc. The third seems to exist at least in part just to give story perspective since as a police officer she is aware of things the other two are not.

But the romance element between Elaine and Jack is very nicely handled in a way that is both understated and more realistic than you generally see. The characters remain at times irritated and confused by each other even after they get together.

I'm calling this one a must read (but brace for the annoying POV) and I'm going to get my hands on Rule 34 to read soon.