Rule 34 by Charles Stross was a bit of an impulse read. I was in a weird mood where none of the unread books on my shelf looked appealing, and I was randomly browsing Amazon when I came across this one. I’d previously read and enjoyed Halting State, an earlier novel by Stross set in the same universe, and I’d also read a few good reviews of this one. So I was able to decide to get it as an ebook, buy it, transfer to my Kindle, and start reading it straight away. Living in the future is marvellous.

The book is set in Edinburgh about 20 years in the future, and is largely a high-tech detective story. The book cycles through several narrators. Liz is a police detective in charge of the Rule 34 squad, tracking down crime through the internet. When several murders occur under unusual circumstances, she is called on to help investigate. Another narrator is Anwar, a low-level criminal who gets in over his head when he is made the consul for a newly formed eastern European state which is largely a front for some shady business dealings. There are a few other narrators, including a creepy criminal enforcer who has come to the city on business only to find that his contacts have been murdered.

(As a side note, consider the difference between the UK cover on the left and the US cover on the right. The UK cover is pretty good and gives a bit of a hint as to what the book might be like. The US cover is really misleading, it doesn’t give an accurate impression of the book at all. A warning against judging a book by its cover I guess, something which I find is especially true in the SF genre.)

I really enjoyed the book. It has some really clever and fascinating ideas about AI and technology. But it is not too serious, and the book is entertaining with a great plot. I also liked the use of multiple narrators, as it gave an interesting view on the story. I also loved the setting, as Edinburgh is a city I am quite familiar with so it was great to imagine it in this way. Overall I thought it was very good.