I'm wondering now if I can get away with putting this on the reading list for my first-year students...
The Edinburgh police investigate the robbery of an MMORPG's central bank
— and this being Stross, there's a bigger story to tell about the
lasting impact of the virtual world upon society.
I found the British urban perspective here rather more convincing than
Stephenson's take on the same thing in REAMDE
.
As the author's recently
pointed out,
this wasn't meant to be predictive when it was released in 2007, but
we're now only one technological step away from it — and the
Snowden leaks and independence referendum have made it feel dangerously
topical at the start of 2014.
And I don't see much to complain about in Stross's vision of an
independent, EU-affiliated Scotland; the Yes campaign should be reading
this for tips.
(Perhaps Scotland's Future
just needs more robo-taxis and quantum
cryptography?)
Excellent stuff. Well worth a read — or reread, if you last read it in 2007.
ISBN 1841496650.