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GLASSHOUSE book cover

I'm very pleased to announce that my latest SF novel, "Glasshouse", is out now in hardcover from Ace. (Orbit aren't publishing a UK hardcover — if you want a British edition you'll need to wait until next March when it comes out in paperback.) You can order it from Amazon.com or find it in bookstores — Amazon won't ship it until Friday, but most shops will already have it on the shelves.
Publishers Weekly said:

The censorship wars -- during which the Curious Yellow virus devastated the network of wormhole gates connecting humanity across the cosmos -- are finally over at the start of Hugo-winner Stross's brilliant new novel, set in the same far-future universe as 2005's Accelerando. Robin is one of millions who have had a mind wipe, to forget wartime memories that are too painful -- or too dangerously inconvenient for someone else. To evade the enemies who don't think his mind wipe was enough, Robin volunteers to live in the experimental Glasshouse, a former prison for deranged war criminals that will recreate Earth's "dark ages" (c. 1950-2040). Entering the community as a female, Robin is initially appalled by life as a suburban housewife, then he realizes the other participants are all either retired spies or soldiers. Worse yet, fragments of old memories return -- extremely dangerous in the Glasshouse, where the experimenters' intentions are as murky as Robin's grasp of his own identity. With nods to Kafka, James Tiptree and others, Stross's wry SF thriller satisfies on all levels, with memorable characters and enough brain-twisting extrapolation for five novels.

As if that's not enough, Kirkus Reviews had this to say in their starred review:
A perfectly tuned combination of gravitas and glee (the literary/cultural references are a blast). Stross's enthralling blend of action, extrapolation and analysis delivers surprise after surprise.

And here's what SFreviews.net said:
This Glasshouse isn't just glass. It's a prism that Charles Stross uses to split his storytelling into all of its component narrative colors — suspense, action, satire. It may be his best book yet. It's his most consistently suspenseful, and his funniest. It's got the trenchant humor of The Family Trade gene-spliced to the thrillaminute pacing of Iron Sunrise. It's set far into the same future as his wildly praised (except by yours truly) Accelerando. But whereas Accelerando seemed to strip-mine its future of humanity, and came across to me as cold and uninviting, Glasshouse presents its posthuman "network civilizations" as a never-ending Willy Wonka factory of phantasmagorical technowonders, as frightening as it is exhilarating.

Go on, buy the book so I don't have to sell my kidneys for a living. Please?

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21 Comments

1:

Have already pre-ordered it at a local MegaBookThing. I can't wait!

2:

My pre-ordered copy arrived from Amazon two hours ago. Can't wait to send the employees home and curl up with it this evening! From the first two pages, it looks great!

3:

It’s a page-turner; I made the mistake of starting it on Sunday night at bedtime (“just a couple of chapters before I zonk out�) and had to forcibly put it down at half past midnight. Finished it the next evening. Yum.

4:

Bought it a week ago after pre-ordering at the local snob bookstore. Worth the effort of tracking down their sci-fi guy for the help.

I've enjoyed it immensely and look forward to re-reading it and possibly scribbling in the margins.

5:

So are you going to be CC licensing this one also?

6:

How much for a kidney?

7:

Mmmm, kidneys *and* books.

8:

I've got my copy from Amazon in my hot little hands. I'll start it just as soon as I'm done with Vinge's Rainbows End ... :)

9:

Toren: Orbit are not publishing GLASSHOUSE in the UK until next March. They expressed concerns about a CC edition cannibalizing their market. Therefore there is no CC edition of GLASSHOUSE. This policy will be revisited if/when the UK edition is in print and/or it's nominated for any awards and/or they acquire an editor with Cluefulness about CC editions.

A short-term release of a free download has been mooted -- if so it will happen soon, but be removed after a month or so (in order to address the UK publisher's concerns).

NB: do not complain to my UK publisher. All you will achieve by doing so is to annoy them and teach them to associate my name with trouble (which will not increase the probability of future novels being made available as a CC-licensed download).

10:

John, for you the pie will cost $50,000. Plus whatever it takes for the crust and the stewing steak.

11:

Just finished it today. Excellent stuff!

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12:

Well no UK hardcover simply means I'll add it to my next big Amazon order from the States.

Mind you Amazon UK have copies for just under £12 delivered so i'll order it from there instead

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13:

Okay, so rather than complain to your UK publisher we should nominate GH for some award? Shouldn't be hard, there's plenty to choose from (and most of them you've been nominated for or won previously anyway). We nominate it for award x, a CC download appears, then we read it so we know what the book we nominated is actually like. Everybody wins (except the author who gets no royalties, but rows of shiny awards on the mantlepiece are worth so much more than mere money.)

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14:

I'm still waiting for mine to ship. I ordered it along with an older Stirling book from Overstock.com. The combined order was about $6 less than on Amazon.com, but they take their time to ship...

15:

Thanks for the Response! I asked because I've become obsessed with reading books on my PDA, I'd love to start in on GLASSHOUSE right away, bit since there's no CC version, I guess I'll have to lug around a bug hunk of cellulose.

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16:

Oh just great. Now I have another 3lbs to add to my suitcase on holiday between you, Vinge and Mcloud I may as well just take my own rubber gloves for the customs folk.

No-one whose passport originates in Wales should have that much reading material.

17:

Wow. Read Glasshouse last night. I tried putting it down at 2am to get some sleep, and that didn't work, so I'm at work feeling a tad under the weather.

I'll file this under my "dystopia" list; the concept of deciding to wipe your own memory ranks pretty high on incomprehensibles to me - my memories are me. Dr. Hanta's skills rank pretty high on my nightmare list, cutting far too close to the concept of identity for my comfort.

Good book, I'm recommending it to others, but I eagerly await more in the Family Trade series for some comfort reading.

18:

I finally cracked open my July copy of Wired and found that "Glasshouse" rates a mention on the Wired playlist - "What the Wired gang is into this month." I couldn't agree more.

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19:

Bought it; read it; will nominate for next year's Hugos in due course. Best yet. Many thanks, and please keep your kidneys.

20:

As to "deciding to wipe your own memory" -- Hemingway used to say that he was so haunted by the memories of his wife leaving a trunk containing 2 years' of his total writing on a train, with no copies/backup, that it led to their divorce. "If I could have brain surgery to wipe out those memories, I would." he said [no copy of his biography open in front of me, may be slightly paraphrased].

I am not a number! Well, maybe isomorphic to a truly enormous number, whose digits contain a high-resolution simulation of me and video of all significant events in my life.

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21:

I've just ordered a copy from Amazon US. It's a bit frustrating that your UK publisher doesn't want to release a hardcover version over here. Don't they like us or something? Tell them we're nice really. We should send them a nice sponge cake and some biscuits. ;)