This is one of the most imaginative sci-fi stories I have encountered. Similar to Cory Doctorow, Stross knows no boundaries when it comes to imagining the future.

The book is about a 27th century war veteran named Robin, wearing a male body (it is common to back yourself up and change bodies as desired). To deal with his past in the war, he underwent memory surgery and is now not entirely sure who exactly he is. But he soon finds out that his former self volunteered to take part in a "glasshouse", a closed experimental research society set in the "Dark Ages" (late 20th century). This is were he wakes up - confused, disoriented, and stuck in the body of a frail woman, assigned the name Reeve.

This book is one of the rare ones which kept me reading non-stop. Reeve's descriptions of the dark ages are very amusing, and as the conspiracy around the glasshouse unfolds, the book gets ever more captivating. ( )

I made it to p. 33 and that's all I could take. This seemed like it was going to be more of that worst of sci fi genres--guys having sex with female aliens. ( )

Extremely twisty ( )

Cuando Robin se despierta en una clínica, habiendo perdido la mayor parte de la memoria, no tarda mucho en descubrir que hay alguien que está intentando matarlo. Estamos en el siglo XXVII, cuando el viaje interestelar se hace por puertas de teletransporte y las guerras se llevan a cabo mediante gusanos de red que censuran la personalidad de los refugiados, tomando como punto de mira a los historiadores. La guerra civil ha terminado, y Robin ha sido desmovilizado, pero alguien quiere terminar con él por algo que su identidad anterior sabía.
Intentando huir de un perseguidor inhumano y buscando un sitio donde esconderse, se presenta voluntario para participar en una sociedad experimental -la Prisión-, construida con el objetivo de recrear una cultura preacelerada. A cada participante se le asigna una identidad anónima: parece el escondrijo ideal para un posthumano a la fuga. Pero se trata de un ambiente del que no hay modo de escapar, y Robin tendrá que someterse a un cambio aún más radical, quedando a merced de su propia psique desequilibrada...

I found this while looking for science fiction stories about mind uploading and life extension. It's set in a world where people can rebuild their bodies basically at will; the main character is a (seemingly male) military operative forcibly remade into a 1950s American housewife as part of a bizarre social experiment. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. It's a very weird, very solid thriller, about escaping from prison—only the prison is society itself in a sense. Cool ideas, played with in interesting ways. This was my first Charles Stross novel, but I suspect it will not be my last.