Halting State

By Charles Stross.

The year is 2018 and Scotland is an independent country and part of the EU. Purchases are made in euros (not that anyone carries cash anymore), while south of the border the English are still using pounds, and the US is just about bankrupt. Taxis drive themselves, and you can never be lost as long as you wear your specs that superimpose GPS data and other information over the world around you. Email is just "mail" now, and your phone can do pretty much anything.

A bank robbery takes place a new start-up company. The suspects? A bunch of orcs and a dragon from an virtual reality game (!). The robbed company banks treasure for virtual worlds in order to increase their rarity and worth; the robbery is just part of a complex scheme that has economic implications in the real world.

Enter a Edinburgh cop, an insurance agent, and a computer programmer... all trying to find out who committed this robbery and why.

This techno-thriller shifts perspective among the three characters, and is told in a second-person narrative, which works all the more to give it the feel of entering the virtual world. -- John L.

Request Halting State from the Saint Paul Public Library.