Series
Halting State
Charles Stross · 2 novels · 2007–2011
Charles Stross's Halting State opens as a near-future police procedural: a bank robbery inside a massively multiplayer online game turns out to mask a much larger cybercrime, investigated through shifting narrators using augmented-reality glasses and always-on networks. Its loose sequel, Rule 34, follows an Edinburgh police officer investigating a string of deaths linked by nothing but an obscure internet meme, in the same near-future Scotland. Both are standalone technothrillers connected by setting and tone rather than a continuing plot.
Summary by Loreful, from public sources
The order the books came out.
Map
Halting State at the centre, its books fanned around what holds them. Pick anything for its details, and zoom out for similar series in orbit — the reading order above lists the same books as text.
Stats
By decade
- 2000s1
- 2010s1
Shape
Mood
Grim and intense: 100% of this series' placed works, the catalog's 46%.
this series · the catalog · one dot = one book2 of 2 works carry a tone
Edges of the map
- Rule 34darkest · most intense
- Halting Statebrightest · calmest