Hannu Rajaniemi had managed to do something unique in SF: to write a hard-SF novel in a far-future, post-human, post-singularity world. No other SF writer has had the courage to immerse the science, the narrative and the prose, so deep in the far future. Adam Roberts was right in saying that "there's nothing quite like it in contemporary SF". It's not an easy book, but this is science-fiction at its best and an incredible piece of literature in general.

Oh... my.....god.....Reading this diamond hard sci-fi novel is certainly not for space opera virgins. My mind is bleeding from the attempt. But then again nothing previously written in the genre (except volume one) could prepare one adequately for this frenetically paced, incredibly complex, fractally dense, relentlessly overwhelming work. It is post human, post singularity and post current imagination. Sui generis indeed, and the gentle reader is not provided with a easy roadmap. Or a lifebelt....

“On the day the Hunter comes for me, I am killing ghost cats from the Schrödinger Box.”I luuuuurve this opening line. His craft is exquisite, so far. Update: The imagery is almost better than anything I've read in either sci-fi or fantasy. If you took out the better and deeper images from all thee matrix movies, threw them up against the wall with jinn and fairies and the greatest heist mysteries, heavily spiced it with near-impossible mathematical concepts and theorems that really need some dee...

3.5/5 starsThe Fractal Prince currently sits at the top of the most complex and difficult sci-fi book I’ve ever read; probably soon to be replaced by its sequel.Rajaniemi continues his uncompromising no exposition storytelling style. Other than one or two short sentences, all terms were left unexplained; it’s up to the readers to make sense of what each terminology means from the narrative. For example gogols, Spimescape, Wildcode, and many more. Feel free to call me stupid or dumb if you want b...

More post singularity thief nonsense in a wildly inventive future solar system.Look, the thing is. I like a story that skips infodumps as much as the next girl. The prequel had that great setup where you could actually steal time off of someone's life, and this book does the same trick of plopping you down into a culture and never actually explaining the rules so it takes a few hundred pages to figure shit out. He makes it worthwhile, because these settings really are great. But at a certain poi...

(The review was originally posted in the blog Random's 23 Cents: http://mybiochemicalsky.wordpress.com...)Step into the Palace of Stories, taste their body of fractals…I gobbled The Fractal Prince up in just a few days, hungry to devour as many pages as possible during my daily commute between tube stations. Or maybe trying to slow down and savor them, sorry to see the book come to an end. Anything inducing such paradoxical states of mind must be more than just good. The follow-up to The Quantum...

Nothing pleases me more than when a novel refuses the reader exposition. Instead, they immerse you in the world and let you sink or swim. And let me tell you, that first gulp of air is so sweet. I read 'The Quantum Thief,' to which this book is the sequel. I was worried that, having already swam in that ocean of post-human lives, sentient machines, and cultures based solely on MMORPGs, that navigating these waters would be too easy. I was delightfully wrong. I had many gasps of sweet sweet air,

This is designed as a series recap in preparation of Causal Angel. You can also use it as a review of both novels if you haven't read them (though I can't guarantee it's spoiler free). I've also included a glossary of terms found within the series as well as a short essay on Zoku-Sobornost relations: these two absolutely contain spoilers! Please note that I created it prior to reading The Causal Angel and it contains some inaccuracies as it doesn't include information revealed in the final book....

One of the reasons I read non-fiction and classics is that they tend to challenge me more than the books I enjoy reading the most. I'll pick up science-fiction or fantasy because I want to escape, relax, and take a break. But too much, and I get bored.I did not have that problem when I read this book. Not one bit. Hannu Rajaniemi, though, has found a way to both escape and challenge my mind at the same time. The challenge is such that, as I have seen one reviewer note, I would not recommend Raja...

“Mieli has been acting strangely. She is not the life of the party at the best of times, but she has been even quieter than usual during the slow weeks of our journey from Mars..”The Fractal Prince is the follow-up to The Quantum Thief in the Jean le Flambeur series by Hannu Rajaniemi.I’m not sure what type of actual monster is perhaps reading this review without having already read the first book in this glorious series, but if that happens to be you.. I can’t guarantee that there won’t be spoi...

I think Rajaniemi's two novels, this and his earlier, The Quantum Thief teeter on the edge of greatness, almost but not quite living up to their promise. They are full of big ideas, a richly imagined future where new ways of being human play out across the solar system. He is uncompromising in chiselling exposition away, and his language often achieves an elliptical kind of lyricism, even when describing the sharp edges of some technological horror. Although, to my mind, it equally often seemed

I loved the previous book, but I read it too long ago to remember if I found it as hard to grasp as this one. There's several story-lines that play out simultaneously in very different worlds, and on top of that there's what feels like a very deliberate tribute to 1001 Nights in the use of nested stories and many of the universe's elements. Once everything is revealed, the layering and plot manipulations are simply grand, but I was well past the halfway point of the book before I felt like I had...

4 Stars The Fractal Prince is a bit of a letdown to me after having reread book one tQT by Hannu Rajaniemi. It is like the first piece an incredibly ambitious and complex piece of hard science fiction that will challenge you as a reader to keep things straight or even to simply understand what he is talking about. As I mentioned in my review of book one, there is a Wiki page that goes into great detail on the vocabulary, the world, the creatures, and of course the science behind the story of The...

So glad I reread this. There are still many things I couldn't quite understand, but this time I really enjoyed the ride and, as in The Quantum Thief, some concepts and the level of creativity really took my breath away.This time, I'm ready for the final book!

This review is for Book 2, The Fractal Prince and Book 3, The Causal Angel. Books 2 and 3 were just as entertaining as Book 1, The Quantum Thief, although neither achieved the thematic heights of Book 1 (the premise of rewriting history that impressed me profoundly). Instead, we are treated to further adventures in this surreal far future world created by Rajaniemi. Rajaniemi continues to impress me with his ability to project into the extreme future what life might be like if consciousness coul...

Wildly entertaining. It's a puzzle and a heist and an interesting mix of science fiction and fantasy. But to be completely honest, I understood maybe 50% of the plot and about 20% of the science (and even less of the theoretical science). Didn't get in the way of my enjoyment of the story though. The prose is fast-paced and a lot of fun (the rollicking kind). Hannu Rajaniemi has an interesting way with words and a unique plotting style that kept me turning the pages late into the night, even tho...

“An awesome, epic hard-sci-fi follow up to The Quantum Thief makes sure that The Fractal Prince was one of my favourite books of 2012.” ~The Founding FieldsThe Fractal Prince was the last book that I finished in 2012, and it was a great year to end my reading on. As The Quantum Thief was one of my favourite novels of 2011, I seized the chance to read a copy of The Fractal Prince and I am grateful for Tor for sending me a copy to review – I just couldn’t put this book down, making it two out of t...

The Fractal Prince by Hannu Rajaniemi. Sequel to The Quantum Thief.A/A+. May be the best "middle book" in the history of science fiction?I was late reading The Quantum Thief, waiting for the paperback after reading some rather forbidding reviews. And it was a slow-starting, not especially reader-friendly book -- hey, it was his first novel -- even though I ended up liking it a lot.The Fractal Prince resolves most of those writing-craft issues, and crackles along, though it's certainly not a page...

7.5/10Returning to the futuristic Solar System of his highly-acclaimed debut novel, The Quantum Thief, after a dynamic entry to the science fiction field that brought to the forefront his talents, Hannu Rajaniemi comes in The Fractal Prince, the second book featuring the gentleman thief Jean le Flambeur, with a different style, traveling us in a story of body thieves, jinni, aristocrats and hunters, but also in an adventure of immortality, love and betrayal, in an imaginative, ambitious sequel.E...

Holy F'ing S, this series is incredible. This one though was a little bit darker than the first one. The Quantum Thief was kind of like those Oceans movies with Clooney only if they were directed by Christopher Nolan. It was a fun, heist/caper novel set in a unbelievably imaginative post-singularity future. This second novel does not have as much humor as the first one and the actions and behaviors of the characters carries a much darker influence. The action remains as original and visual as a