Sally Strange reviewed Glasshouse by Charles Stross
A very odd love story
5 stars
A person (man? woman? it depends on where in the story we're joining them) emerges from radical memory surgery with no idea why their former self decided to make such a radical break from their past that they can't even remember why they deleted so many memories. They meet a charming four-armed woman who's in a similar boat. They both end up getting recruited for a sinister experiment where they, a bunch of 27th (I think) century posthuman types, get thrown into an ersatz 1950s - 1990s setting. They're told it's for historical research after the great censorship wars destroyed so many records of the past, but of course there's more to it than that--and the secrets the experimenters are concealing have a lot to do with those wars, which may not be as finished as our MC initially thought. And all along, they keep hunting for their four-armed lover, …
A person (man? woman? it depends on where in the story we're joining them) emerges from radical memory surgery with no idea why their former self decided to make such a radical break from their past that they can't even remember why they deleted so many memories. They meet a charming four-armed woman who's in a similar boat. They both end up getting recruited for a sinister experiment where they, a bunch of 27th (I think) century posthuman types, get thrown into an ersatz 1950s - 1990s setting. They're told it's for historical research after the great censorship wars destroyed so many records of the past, but of course there's more to it than that--and the secrets the experimenters are concealing have a lot to do with those wars, which may not be as finished as our MC initially thought. And all along, they keep hunting for their four-armed lover, who, of course, no longer has four arms.
War crimes, love, guilt, espionage, sexism, mob violence, revolution - this book has it all. Highly recommend.
