The Quantum Thief, by Hannu Rajaniemi

Review copy provided by Tor.

"What are you reading?" said timprov. "This Finnish physics nerd moved to Scotland and wrote a modern British-style space opera," I said. "...I think I want to read that," he said. "Yah, I think you do," I said.

There is this sentence in the middle that just made me grin: "Fighting a cabal of planetary mind-controlling masterminds with a group of masked vigilantes--that's what life should be all about." It is, at the very least, what this book should be all about. Or substantially about, with cool excursions along the way.

I think one of the things The Quantum Thief does that puts it above other current space opera for me is that the cool side bits, the interesting interludes and awesome stuff, is substantially better at being cool, interesting, awesome than average. It intersects better with the set of stuff I consider awesome. Some of that might be attributable to the "Finnish physics nerd" thing, but some of it comes out in other ways--the dead chocolatier, for example, and how he plays into the rest of the stuff going on in this book.

Whatever he writes next, I'll be reading it. Good stuff.