The Quantum Thief

Jean le Flambeur is a posthuman criminal, thought thief, con artist, and trickster. His origins are shrouded in mystery, but his deeds are well-known throughout the Heterarchy – from breaking into the massive Zeusbrains of the Inner System to steal their thoughts, to stealing rare antiques from Earth among the aristocrats of the Moving Cities on Mars. However, Jean made a mistake. Now he is condemned to play endless variations of a game-theoretical puzzle in the vast virtual prison of the Axelrod Archons – the Prisoner's Dilemma – against countless copies of himself. Jean's routine of death, defection, and cooperation is disrupted by the arrival of Mieli and her spider spaceship Perhonen. She offers him the chance to regain his freedom and the powers of his former self – in exchange for completing the one heist he never quite managed. The Quantum Thief is a dazzling hard sci-fi novel set in a distant future solar system – a heist story populated by bizarre posthumans, yet driven by very human motives such as betrayal, revenge, and jealousy. It is a breathtaking debut.