Halting State

Halting State is a novel by Charles Stross, published in the United States on October 2, 2007 and in the UK in January, 2008. Stross has said that it is "a thriller set in the software houses that write multiplayer games". The plot centers around a bank robbery in a virtual world. It features speculative technologies, including Specs and virtual server networks over mobile phones. The book is on its second printing in the United States. It is wri... more

Halting State is a novel by Charles Stross, published in the United States on October 2, 2007 and in the UK in January, 2008. Stross has said that it is "a thriller set in the software houses that write multiplayer games". The plot centers around a bank robbery in a virtual world. It features speculative technologies, including Specs and virtual server networks over mobile phones. The book is on its second printing in the United States. It is written in the second person at least in part as an homage to the Adventure games. The novel was nominated for the both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 2008. The main story is split between three main protagonists, Sue, Elaine, and Jack, respectively, whose sections are always in the second person, with italicized thoughts in first person during each character's respective chapter. Each chapter is followed in sequential trilogies (Sue, Elaine, Jack) for the duration of the novel. This pattern excepts only the prologue and epilogue of the novel,... less