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Rule 34 Audiobook
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(3.00) - 3,014 listener ratings
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Publisher Description
Hugo Award-winning author Charles Stross takes listeners into the near future for this breathtaking thriller. As head of the Rule 34 Squad, Detective Inspector Liz Kavanaugh keeps a close eye on Internet activity, monitoring whether people are participating in harmless fantasies or engaging in illegal activities. When three criminal spammers are murdered, it's up to Liz to determine how the victims were connected. If she can't figure it out, more people will surely die. "Stross sizzles with ideas."-Denver Post
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"A great re-entry into Stross' near future of policing in the independent Scottish Eurostate. His insider's projection of both nanny state societal trends and the impact of technology on daily live are as entertaining as they are prescient. Some great plot twists, but nothing quite so severe as the end game in Halting State. The illustration of the power of augmented reality, and its impact on both police and criminal behavior gives a gritty reality to policing of the future."
— Eric (5 out of 5 stars)
Quotes
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“A savvy, funny, viciously inventive science fiction novel.”
— Cory Doctorow, New York Times bestselling author -
“Stross’ latest foray is not for the faint of heart nor for readers looking for a lightweight story. This novel is a challenging read. Told from a distancing second-person point-of-view through multiple narrative voices, it paints a bleak, disturbing portrait of a world where seemingly the only commodity not counterfeited and sold on the Internet is free will.”
— RT Book Reviews (4½ stars, Top Pick!)
Rule 34 Listener Reviews
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" Enjoyable light near-future extrapolation. Take 3D printing, add in a little spam, and a splash of artificial intelligence and you have a decent sci-fi crime drama to play with. Like much of Stross' stuff, it's more of the light snack style of science fiction: quick, easy, and fun to read. "
— Gatzby, 1/13/2014 -
" Bailed out about two chapters in. The writing style drove me insane "
— Anne, 12/23/2013 -
" If I could, I'd give it a 2.5. I liked some parts, others were a slog for me and I didn't care for the ending. "
— Kathleen, 12/4/2013 -
" I loved all the little nerdy details and shout-outs to the memes that obviously should be in a book titled rule 34 "
— Lodewijk, 10/27/2013 -
" I just couldn't get past the explicit sexuality and language to give this story the time to understand if the ideas were brilliant or not...DNF. "
— Vince, 8/5/2013 -
" This was okay. But the main part of the story was good. It is written in the first person which is a bit weird at first but you get used to it. "
— Joyce, 7/31/2013 -
" A clever little sci fi novel that only needs to extrapolate a few small steps in order to end up someplace recognizable and still foreign. To really enjoy it you probably have to have at least a passing knowledge of internet popular culture circa 2010. "
— Nick, 5/26/2013 -
" almost lost me in the first quarter. To many parts with too much dialect playing and non-connection. ANd the idea was pushed. But came together interestingly and okay - though not a great read. "
— Robert, 5/3/2013 -
" I normally love this kind of hard sci-fi novel, but this one never cohered for me. Disparate characters and unwieldy terminology failed to engage. I also disliked the use of second person. "
— Rick, 4/7/2013 -
" Having all the dialog in Second person is really obnoxious. Could not enjoy "
— Tony, 2/6/2013 -
" Well-done techno-thriller. The futurism is not as interesting as in Halting State, but a good read. "
— Miket01, 12/3/2012 -
" A good book poorly executed. I despise reading books in the 2nd person even if they're choose-your-own-adventure books. I had a very hard time concentrating on it, and I couldn't become attached to the main character enough to care about what happened to her because of the way the book was written. "
— Kell, 6/4/2012 -
" Didn't know going into this that it was a sequel to halting state. It follows one of the minor characters in that book through another mystery. Probably not quite as good as halting state, but still pretty fun. "
— Sschallerxx, 4/11/2012 -
" This book goes so overboard with jargon, slang, and dialect that I felt like I was struggling with a new foreign language and gave up after 30 pages. "
— Jim, 2/29/2012 -
" Weird. Written in 2nd person. Took ages to get into. Not my cup of tea. "
— Tina, 2/10/2012 -
" I never read SiFi so when this one was a book club pick I was not happy but I loved it. Fast read, lots of twist and turns and first person took a chapter to get used to but what fun! I wonder if I would like any of his other books? "
— Cheval, 11/18/2011
About Charles Stross
Charles Stross is the author of the bestselling Merchant Princes series, the Laundry series, and several stand-alone novels, including Glasshouse, Accelerando, and Saturn’s Children. Born in Leeds, England, in 1964, Stross studied in London and Bradford, earning degrees in pharmacy and computer science. Over the next decade and a half he worked as a pharmacist, a technical writer, a software engineer, and eventually as a prolific journalist covering the IT industry. His short fiction began attracting wide attention in the late 1990s; his first novel, Singularity Sky, appeared in 2003. He has subsequently won the Hugo Award twice. He lives with his wife in Edinburgh, Scotland, in a flat that is slightly older than the state of Texas.
About Robert Ian Mackenzie
Robert Ian Mackenzie, Earphones Award–winning narrator, became an actor after holding a wide variety of other jobs, including everything from London policeman to water ski instructor in Greece. Since then, his acting career has encompassed straight theater, musicals, opera, films, television, voice-overs, commercials, and recorded books.