Steve Review: The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi

Jul 28, 2011 by shanyn

Title: The Quantum Thief
Series: The Quantum Thief Trilogy #1
Hardcover, 329 pages
Author: Hannu Rajaniemi
Publisher: Tor Books
Publication Date: May 10, 2011
Source: Purchased
Buy: Amazon

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Book Summary:
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….

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Steve Review:
The Quantum Thief has stolen my heart.  Well, not really, but I couldn’t pass on such an awesome opening line to a review yanno?  Since this isn’t really the typical CLL YA review let’s compromise; I’ll keep the review semi-short and you pretend to skim it with mild interest.  Deal?

This was a fairly middle of the road book for me.  I enjoyed it but didn’t love it.  Pretty much everything was good but nothing great.  The only complaint I have with it is that the twists and turns in the plot slightly overstep and begin to get a touch tangled.  Other than that I was impressed with the debut for this new Finnish author Hannu Rajaniemi and I am interested to see where this trilogy goes.

Points time?

Points Scale:
Cover: 4/5 – Not AMAZING, but cool looking and got my attention.
Title: 4/5 – Appropriate.
Plot: 7/10 – Good, interesting, creative, but not great.
Characters: 6/10 – I enjoyed the characters, but didn’t LOVE them.
Writing: 7/10 – Different but good.
Ending: 7/10 – I think we’ll be seeing some more of Mr. Thief.  Intriguing ending but with enough resolution to keep you satisfied at the end of this book.

Total: 35/50 – Like I’ve mentioned, good but not outstanding.  Definitely good enough to see where the rest of the series goes!

Buy: Amazon

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