The science fiction series by Hannu Rajaniemi currently consists of the novels The Quantum Thief, The Fractal Prince, and The Causal Angel.
In his identity as Jean le Flambeur, he prefers to wear a white shirt and velvet jacket, and sometimes sports blue shades.
Mieli (Finnish, "mind") is an Oortian warrior—"so battle-ready she has a fusion reactor embedded in her thigh"[1]—and the daughter of Karhu ("bear; ursa") of the Hiljainen Koto ("quiet home").
The arc of the Jean le Flambeur series appears to revolve around an emerging conflict amongst certain high-ranking members of the Sobornost, known as the Founders.
The Founders were humans that gained power after the massive mind uploadings and thereby acquired individual command of a large number of gogols.
Known Founders include Matjek Chen, Josephine Pellegrini, the Engineer-of-Souls (aka "Sasha"), the twins Hsien-ku, Vasilev, Sumanguru and Chitragupta.
In the epilogue of The Quantum Thief, it is revealed that three gogols escaped from the Dilemma Prison: Jean le Flambeur, Mieli and the All-Defector, which Sasha states to be a creation of the Archons.
The Engineer-of-Souls, called Sasha by Josephine Pellegrini, is a Sobornost Founder who specializes in cultivating new types of minds inside his Guberniya in his "garden of souls", hence the title.
His creations include the Archons, which are used to take care of criminals in the Dilemma Prison, the Dragons (although this has also been attributed to Chen) and the Hunter, which was created in the events of the eponymous chapter of The Quantum Thief at the behest of Pellegrini, presumably to hunt down Jean le Flambeur.
It is hinted in The Quantum Thief that she and Jean shared a complicated past relationship, one that has both professional and romantic components, and this is revealed in greater detail in The Fractal Prince.
In The Quantum Thief, the "pellegrini" is initially portrayed as a mysterious entity of the Sobornost, who wields god-like powers over Jean and Mieli.
As the story progresses, the "pellegrini" reveals, using Mieli's body as a mouthpiece, that she had an elaborate history with Jean, having possibly been both a mentor and a lover.
As a human, he is said to have escaped a black box upload camp (perhaps similar to the one in the Ordos Desert, where Xuexue was stationed) when he was eleven, became a Fedorovist leader in Central Africa and single-handedly wiped out gogol trade there.
Unfortunately, Jean had a firmament vir running on Oortian hardware (the ship Perhonen) and Sobornost software, and so was able to trap Sumanguru's Founder Code.
In "The Causal Angel", Josephine Pellegrini reveals that Anton Vasilev was recruited into the Founders to serve as their public face and endorser.
It is also revealed that Pellegrini regretted the method by which she recruited Vasilev, claiming she "left him with a wound that never healed," and it is implied that this is the source of his animosity towards her.
He is only ten Martian years old when he attracts unwelcome fame after solving a gogol piracy case that was brought to his attention by The Gentleman.
This fame brings him to the attention of the millenniaire, Christian Unruh, who summons him to solve the mystery of the impossible appearance of a note at his residence.
At the end of The Quantum Thief, Isidore is the de facto Cryptarch of the Oubliette, having received the master key to gevulot from Jean le Roi.
The nine Dignities of God are nine Watches, custom-made by Paul Sernine (aka Jean le Flambeur) and given to nine Oubliette citizens whom he considered to be his friends.
After coming back from the Quiet, she disguises herself as the mysterious tzadik The Gentleman and mentors Isidore in his detective work, drawing his attention to a gogol piracy case at the start of The Quantum Thief.
In the Goodness chapter, she recalled to Paul Sernine how she would persuade parents in situations of distress (e.g. after suffering a natural disaster) into letting their children be uploaded.
Most of the remnants of humanity on Earth live in Sirr and depend on the Seals, which are apparently produced by the Gomelez family, to protect themselves from the wildcode.
It threatens to weaken the Gomelez family's push for renegotiating the Cry of Wrath Accords with the Sobornost, and leads to the invitation of a sumanguru to investigate the death.
In The Fractal Prince, the Aun are strange entities of Sirr who hold god-like powers over the wildcode and demanded true stories from those who seek boons from them.
[3] Cassar Gomelez (the namesake of a character in The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Jan Potocki) is the father of Dunyazad and Tawaddud and a member of the Sirr Council.
Emina (possibly in reference to one of the two Moorish princesses in The Manuscript Found in Saragossa) is an acquaintance of Tawaddud Gomelez who works in the Palace of Dreams.
The masrurs are a jinni guerilla movement who have been attacking soul trains in protest against the modification of the Cry of Wrath Accords, proposed by Councilman Gomelez.
Their origins can be traced back to gamer communities from before the beginning of the massive mind uploading, and they hold Tangleparties, which can be thought of as a quantum version of LAN parties, to remember who they were.
This character shares a name Impey Barbicane who is president of the Baltimore Gun Club in Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon.