Tag Archives: Hannu Rajaniemi

The Quantum Thief

Book Review of The Quantum Thief (Jean le Flambeur #1), by Hannu Rajaniemi

I borrowed an audio copy of The Quantum Thief, by Hannu Rajaniemi through the library.

Description from Goodreads:

Jean le Flambeur is a post-human criminal, mind burglar, confidence artist, and trickster. His origins are shrouded in mystery, but his exploits are known throughout the Heterarchy— from breaking into the vast Zeusbrains of the Inner System to stealing rare Earth antiques from the aristocrats of Mars. Now he’s confined inside the Dilemma Prison, where every day he has to get up and kill himself before his other self can kill him.

Rescued by the mysterious Mieli and her flirtatious spacecraft, Jean is taken to the Oubliette, the Moving City of Mars, where time is currency, memories are treasures, and a moon-turnedsingularity lights the night. What Mieli offers is the chance to win back his freedom and the powers of his old self—in exchange for finishing the one heist he never quite managed.

As Jean undertakes a series of capers on behalf of Mieli and her mysterious masters, elsewhere in the Oubliette investigator Isidore Beautrelet is called in to investigate the murder of a chocolatier, and finds himself on the trail of an arch-criminal, a man named le Flambeur….

Review:

Not bad and I think there was probably a time—back when I read a lot more hard science fiction—that I would have loved it. Now, I enjoyed the ride, but was never able to immerse myself in it. You spend a lot of time….confused isn’t the word, but definitely waiting to have things explained. But the prose is beautiful, I did like the characters and the story does eventually loop back around to make a sort of sense. Plus, the narrator (Scott Brick) did a fabulous job. But the story is just a little too like water, slipping through your grasp, for my taste.