In 1967, kids, led by old lefties and poets, surrounded the Pentagon, put daisies in menacing rifle barrels, and engaged in a theatrical chant meant to levitate the building. A similar playful spirit of protest against our own surveillance state in Karl Schroeder’s near-future novel, Stealing Worlds. Sura, a young woman whose father has been killed while investigating wrongdoing in the oil industry, needs to get off the grid. But there are grid-connected cameras everywhere. What to do? Use the grid to defeat itself. She meets a woman named Compass who shows her how to spoof the system. As Paul Di Filippo puts it in his Locus review: “Compass is a representative of the gameworld/frameworld/larping counter-economy, where Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and Mixed Reality converge to form a kind of quasi-potlatch, quasi-barter, quasi-communal, cryptocurrency ecosystem.” If you liked the messaging in Cory Doctorow’s Walkaway, you will like Schroeder’s larping lark. Four stars. ( )

Pretty great world building but the plot felt very ungrounded. Characters came and went (and the Jay interaction felt weird a lot of the time), it felt more like a set of scenes out together

I don't know about the rewiliding this way, it feels like we can know what the planet needs well enough (mostly to be left alone) not to have everyone on earth simulated and every bear tagged and tracked. I know the books reasoning was that the govt is doing it anyway, and it's treated as gentle and good but it's pretty extreme.

The idea of people spending their life in ar was pretty interesting (although again reskinning the entire world felt extreme). I also do see what he means that the best 40 years have just been using computers to do old school economics faster (also quants just break it), there's definitely room for other ways. Although how many times can I hear the word blockchain ( )

I'm afraid I'm just not as impressed as it seems everyone else is. Though it tries hard to cover this up by being current (mansplaining! Trumpees!) and sophisticated, at heart this book is preachy and didactic. This is not always a horrible thing if your are getting your lessons & sermon from someone who *really* knows something you don't, I never get the impression that Schroeder is that person. Like reading one of those novels centering on driving home the evils of nuclear war from the 1980s. ( )

Times being what they are, with the coronavirus attacking the world, and so many of us being affected in so many ways, it was a bit surreal listening to this book on Audible. I wouldn't call this dystopian, although it is set in a world where global warming has devastated the Earth, and the promise of capitalism is shown to be an empty vessel. Aside from using the an eff bomb repeatedly as a character contrivance, Stealing Worlds is an absolutely spectacular novel. Virtual and Mixed Reality, Live Action Role Playing (LARP), block-chain technology, politics, and revolution all have a place in this thriller by Karl Schroeder.
Sura Neelin is on the run after her father is murdered and she doesn’t even know who she is running from. The society has evolved into one of complete and constant surveillance, but she might have a chance in the virtual game world, using smart glasses and block-chain tech. His characters are distinctive and well-drawn, and as the plot moves along, I liked Sura more and more. Her first mentor, Compass, turns out to be a broken but gifted young woman, and Nancy Wu, who is the reader for this audiobook, brings Compass to life. The evolution of the game world economy and the smart tech of the world, with its " Internet of Things," is brilliantly conceived and makes for a mind-stretching read.
With all of the political gyrations I wondered how he would pull off the grandiose plot, but he stuck the landing, very satisfying. Highly recommended!
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Karl Schroeder is one of the authors I loved from Project Hieroglyph. I'd been meaning to pick up one of his novels, but I hadn't until now.

I really love the things he's dreamed up in this novel, Stealing Worlds. I went from "Hey, there's a lot here that's really interesting to think about" to "I WANT THIS."

Seriously. I do. I want this.

[Note: the audiobook narrator isn't terrible, but she's not one of the best, either. Might be better to read with your eyes.] ( )