The John Le Flambeur series, or at least the two books released so far, are stories for those who love stories. Linguaphiles in particular will be delighted by The Quantum Thief and The Fractal Prince from Hannu Rajaniemi, whose last name takes some practice to say if you’re not a native Finnish speaker. The third, The Causal Angel is released this July 15 from Tor in the United States and July 17 from Gollancz in the UK.
Normally each of these books would be reviewed individually, but given that The Quantum Thief is about a post-human who goes by the nom de guerre or possibly nom de plume depending on the situation who tells stories in order to steal things, and The Fractal Prince is about the same man telling the story of him telling stories to steal things in order to steal other things – it gets all very meta – it can be hard to separate the books out. Not that they don’t stand well on their own.
The world, neigh the solar system of The Quantum Thief and The Fractal Prince, and quite possibly the universe, is one big post-human post-cyberpunk techno-dreamscape. It’s a place that the English language alone isn’t capable of describing, and so Rajaniemi has turned to French, Russian, Japanese, and his native Finnish to describe succinctly. In The Fractal Prince Rajaniemi expands on this with Arabic and Spanish. Digital souls are known as gogols, after Nikolai Gogol the author of Dead Souls. There’s a city on Mars known as the Oubliette, which is French for dungeon. The best though is the intelligent spaceship Perhonen, or butterfly in Finnish. For anyone with a love of languages or experience of world literature the aptness with which Rajaniemi introduces new words to the English language is delightful; each new word a morsel that’s presented with surprising delicacy while complimenting the others as if the entirety of the series were a mutli-course meal laid on by a Michelin Star chef.
The story, or stories, of The Quantum Thief is of Mieli the Oortian warrior tasked with freeing John Le Flambeur from prison and getting him to steal something for her from the Oubliette on Mars. In The Fractal Prince the tale continues as Mieli and John continue their journey to Earth where they are looking for the key to the item they’ve taken from Mars. Along the way they’ll battle old enemies and new; encounter post-humans, themselves, nanites, giant gestalt entities; enter virtual worlds within virtual worlds and more. It sounds very confusing, and a lot to pack into books that aren’t the tomes of Peter F. Hamilton, but it’s worth it for the active reader who wants a book that will keep her thinking long after she’s put it down.
The Quantum Thief and The Fractal Prince are ultimately books about ideas. Not stories of “what if…” like so many other sci-fi novels, rather ones where everything has happened and humanity isn’t one singular cultural entity. All of the possibilities are playing out in the John Le Flambeur series and Rajaniemi is skillfully conducting each into something so much more. The third book, The Causal Angel, cannot disappoint because there isn’t any way one could reasonable expect for a particular thing to happen next – each turn of the page presents a new surprise.
Rajaniemi presents some truly original ideas and draws upon his own culture in such a wonderful way – think about how one would have a sauna in the depths of space, including the chilling plunge following each round in the heat – that make The Quantum Thief and The Fractal Prince worth every page. Kept concise and relevant the stories never deviate into long scientific explanations but continue forward since these are the stories of characters first and foremost. Picking up these books will provide any reader with some excellent summer adventures and leave them wondering about all the potential futures the universe may have.
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Review by: Gregory Pellechi
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