Quantum Thief by Hanny Rajaniemi

Details:

Published in 2011 by Tor Books.

I read it in 2012.

From the Publisher:

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 stealing rare Earth antiques from the aristocrats of Mars. Now he’s confined inside the Dilemma Prison, where every day he has to get up and kill himself before his other self can kill him.

Rescued by the mysterious Mieli and her flirtatious spacecraft, Jean is taken to the Oubliette, the Moving City of Mars, where time is currency, memories are treasures, and a moon-turnedsingularity lights the night. What Mieli offers is the chance to win back his freedom and the powers of his old self—in exchange for finishing the one heist he never quite managed.

As Jean undertakes a series of capers on behalf of Mieli and her mysterious masters, elsewhere in the Oubliette investigator Isidore Beautrelet is called in to investigate the murder of a chocolatier, and finds himself on the trail of an arch-criminal, a man named le Flambeur….

The Quantum Thief is a crazy joyride through the solar system several centuries hence, a world of marching cities, ubiquitous public-key encryption, people communicating by sharing memories, and a race of hyper-advanced humans who originated as MMORPG guild members. But for all its wonders, it is also a story powered by very human motives of betrayal, revenge, and jealousy. It is a stunning debut.

First Line:

As always, before the warmind and I shoot each other, I try to make small talk.

Alternate Covers:

Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry

Details:

Published in 2000 by Houghton Mifflin.

I think I read it in 2004.

From the Publisher:

Kira, an orphan with a twisted leg, lives in a world where the weak are cast aside. She fears for her future until she is spared by the all-powerful Council of Guardians. Kira is a gifted weaver and is given a task that no other community member can do. While her talent keeps her alive and brings certain privileges, Kira soon realizes she is surrounded by many mysteries and secrets. No one must know of her plans to uncover the truth about her world and see what places exist beyond.

First Line:

"Mother?"

There was no reply. She hadn't expected one.

1984 by George Orwell

Details:

Published in 1949 by Secker and Warburg.

The version I read was a Signet Classic published in 1990.

Best guess, I read this in 2003.

From the Publisher:

In 1984, London is a grim city where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.


Written in 1948, 1984 was George Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, Orwell’s narrative is timelier than ever. 1984 presents a startling and haunting vision of the world, so powerful that it is completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the power of this novel, its hold on the imaginations of multiple generations of readers, or the resiliency of its admonitions—a legacy that seems only to grow with the passage of time.

First Line:

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

Alternative Covers:

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Details:

Published in 1984 by Ace Books.

I read it in 2011.

Awards:

It was the first book to win the Science Fiction "Triple Crown":

The Nebula Award

The Philip K. Dick Award

The Hugo Award

From the Publisher:

Case was the hottest computer cowboy cruising the information superhighway--jacking his consciousness into cyberspace, soaring through tactile lattices of data and logic, rustling encoded secrets for anyone with the money to buy his skills. Then he double-crossed the wrong people, who caught up with him in a big way--and burned the talent out of his brain, micron by micron. Banished from cyberspace, trapped in the meat of his physical body, Case courted death in the high-tech underworld. Until a shadowy conspiracy offered him a second chance--and a cure--for a price....

First Line:

The sky was the color of a television tuned to a dead channel.

Alternate Covers:

The Ear, the Eye and the Arm by Nancy Farmer

Details:

Published in 1995 by Puffin Books.

Best guess, I read it in 1997.

Awards:

Newbery Medal of Honor

From the Publisher: 

Zimbabwe, 2194: General Matsika's three children steal out of the house on a forbidden adventure--and disappear. Their parents call in Africa's most unusual detectives: the Ear, the Eye and the Arm. Their mission takes them from underbelly of the city to swaying top of the Mile-High Macllwaine Hotel. Yet the children stay just out of their reach. The evils of the past, the technology of the future, criminals with plans far beyond what anyone can imagine - can the Matsika children escape from the heart of it all?

First Line:

Someone was standing by his bed, a person completely unlike anyone Tendai had ever met.

Alternate Covers:

Stations of the Tide by Michael Swanwick

Details:

Published in 1991 by William Marrow and Company

Reprinted in 2011 by Orb Books (the version I read and the cover seen above)
I read it in 2012.

Awards:

Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1991

From the Publisher:

From author Michael Swanwick—one of the most brilliantly assured and darkly inventive writers of contemporary fiction—comes a masterwork of radically altered realities and world-shattering seductions.


The Jubilee Tides will drown the continents of the planet Miranda beneath the weight of her own oceans. But as the once-in-two-centuries cataclysm approaches, an even greater catastrophe threatens this dark and dangerous planet of tale-spinners, conjurers, and shapechangers.


A man from the Bureau of Proscribed Technologies has been sent to investigate. For Gregorian has come, a genius renegade scientist and charismatic bush wizard. With magic and forbidden technology, he plans to remake the rotting, dying world in his own evil image—and to force whom or whatever remains on its diminishing surface toward a terrifying and astonishing confrontation with death and transcendence.


This novel of surreal hard SF was compared to the fiction of Gene Wolfe when it was first published, and the author has gone on in the two decades since to become recognized as one of the finest living SF and fantasy writers.

First Line:

The bureaucrat fell from the sky.


Alternate Covers: