7.4 /10 1 Votes
Cover artist Alberto Seveso Series Halting State series Publication date July 2011 Originally published 5 July 2011 Original language English Page count 368 | 3.7/5 Goodreads Country US/UK Publisher Ace (US) / Orbit (UK) Pages 368 Preceded by Halting State Genre Science Fiction | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Rule 34 is a near-future science fiction novel by Charles Stross. It is a loose sequel to Halting State, and was released on 5 July 2011 (US) and 7 July 2011 (UK). The title is a reference to Rule 34 of the Internet, which states that "If it exists, there is porn of it. No exceptions." Rule 34 was nominated for the 2012 Arthur C. Clarke Award and the 2012 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.
Contents
Plot summary
The novel is told in second-person narrative but primarily from three points of view: Edinburgh Police Inspector Kavanaugh, who investigates spammers murdered in gruesome and inventive ways, and learns about similar cases in other parts of Europe; Anwar, a former identity thief who becomes Scottish honorary consul for a fictional Central Asian state; and "The Toymaker", an enforcer and organizer for the criminal "Operation". Their interactions and conflicts drive the story.
Critical reception
Reviews have been favorable, with Cory Doctorow calling the novel, "savvy, funny, viciously inventive". Kirkus Reviews gives it a star, saying, "Dazzling, chilling and brilliant", Publishers Weekly calls "the whole more than the sum of its parts", and there was a generally positive review in The Guardian.
Sequel cancellation
Following the revelations by Edward Snowden, Stross announced that there would be no third book in the planned trilogy. ""Halting State" wasn't intended to be predictive when I started writing it in 2006. Trouble is, about the only parts that haven't happened yet are Scottish Independence and the use of actual quantum computers for cracking public key encryption (and there's a big fat question mark over the latter—what else are the NSA up to?)"