Interview: Finnish author Hannu Rajaniemi, rising star of SF

SciFiNow, a British science fiction, horror, cult TV and fantasy magazine, recently interviewed Finnish string theorist and rising science fiction star Hannu Rajaniemi, author of the new hard SF novel The Quantum Thief (Gollancz, UK, September 2010). Rajaniemi’s debut novel, The Quantum Thief has received praise from several quarters. Here’s a description, if you’re not familiar with the storyline:

Jean le Flambeur is a post-human criminal, mind burglar, confidence artist and trickster. His origins are shrouded in mystery, but his exploits are known throughout the Heterarchy - from breaking into the vast Zeusbrains of the Inner System to steal their thoughts, to stealing rare Earth antiques from the aristocrats of the Moving Cities of Mars. Except that Jean made one mistake. Now he is condemned to play endless variations of a game-theoretic riddle in the vast virtual jail of the Axelrod Archons -- the Dilemma Prison -- against countless copies of himself. Jean's routine of death, defection and cooperation is upset by the arrival of Mieli and her spidership, Perhonen. She offers him a chance to win back his freedom and the powers of his old self -- in exchange for finishing the one heist he never quite managed...

The Quantum Thief is scheduled to be published in the U.S. by Tor Books in May 2011.