**The Quantum Thief is a Kirkus Reviews Best of 2011 Science Fiction &
Fantasy title. One of Library Journal's Best SF/Fantasy Books of
2011
**
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....
Hannu Rajaniemi's The Quantum Thief is a crazy joyride through the
solar system several centuries hence, a world of marching cities,
ubiquitous public-key encryption, people communicating by sharing
memories, and a race of hyper-advanced humans who originated as MMORPG
guild members. But for all its wonders, it is also a story powered by
very human motives of betrayal, revenge, and jealousy. It is a stunning
debut.
