Mr Charles Stross, would you care to step forward?

I picked up Halting State today, it's a book set in a world where Augmented and Virtual Realities are commonplace and Real World people have been called in to investigate an MMORPG bankjob. It's first film matrixy but English and real. Anyway, I've not brought this up as a book review.

What grabbed my attention was a fight scene with Augmented Reality (for those not in the know, the software is just coming into mainstream mainly through the iPhone- the GPS and inbuilt video camera work to create an overlay to your reality.) In this case AR was used to increase the realism of a swordfight. Below is an extract:

"'Your mother wears army boots!'

You're not sure that's the right thing to say to a late fifteenth-century main battle tank, but he takes it in the spirit you intended- and more importantly he spots you changing guard, lowering the point of your sword. And he goes for you immediately, nothing subtle about it, just a diagonal swing, pivoting forward so he can slice a steak off you.

Of course, this is what you expected when you twisted your wrist....... You dip your pont and grab your blade with your left hand, blocking him with a clang...... You're using sword like a short stabbing spear now- and hook the tip into his armpit like a one-and-a-half-kilo can-opener while hooking his knee with your left foot.

Unlike a modern main battle tank, the old fashioned version can fall on its arse".

Later, the AR works to show the efficiency of a hit and projects blood all over the place. The tech to build that into fencing masks is quite some time away, but it's a fantastic idea.

However, a few things struck me:

"Thirty seconds of combat feels like thirty minutes at the gym or three hours slaving over a hot spreadsheet"

"... when you either did dress-up re-enactment or actual martial arts (and never the twain shall meet)"


"... and stuff it in your briefcase with the usual: pen, iPod, your father's antique pocket calculator, and a dog-eared copy of Tobler's manual of sword fighting that you borrowed from Matthew"

Mr Stross also technobabbles D20 gaming, LARP, Renactment, the embarrassment for all of this. He hits the nail on the head too often- I suspect he is One Of Us.

In which case, I must say: Hey lazerlips, your momma was a snowblower.