The Quantum Thief

Jean le Flambeur is a criminal in a post-human world, a mind hacker, a trickster. His origins are shrouded in mystery, but word of his exploits has spread across the world. However, Jean made one mistake, and the beginning of the novel finds him in the vast virtual prison of the Archons — the Dilemma Prison — where he is doomed to play endless variations of a game-theoretical scenario against countless copies of himself, which is supposed to reform his character by instilling a love of cooperation. The endless chain of virtual deaths and failures is interrupted by the appearance of Mieli and her thinking ship Perhonen. By abducting Jean, they give him a chance to regain his freedom and his former power. In exchange for completing one heist he has not yet managed to pull off.

“The Quantum Thief” (Quantum thief) is a brilliant example of hard science fiction, set across the expanse of the Solar System in the distant future. A heist novel populated by strange post-human beings, yet filled with very human motives of betrayal, revenge, and jealousy.