3 ms·

No, it is not fake. The article is satire playing off of true real-world current events.

erikpukinskis 9y ago
Is it satirizing publishers? It seemed more like a device for mocking people who are unwilling to consider conspiracy theories, but... Somehow it didn't feel like satire to me. Can't put a finger on why.
- smacktoward 9y ago
  It is satirizing current events. The joke is that the story of the WannaCrypt ransomware attack is so full of improbable developments that, if it had been written as fiction, no publisher would accept it. This has been another episode of the Hacker News Joke Explainer™
  - JorgeGT 9y ago
    That's the good thing about reality: it doesn't have to conform to plausible narrative norms.
- egypturnash 9y ago
  The author of this is a professional fiction writer. He does a lot of near-future SF/F, often involving assorted spy agencies - some real, some fictional. He's made up a lot of crazy Secret Plots. All of the events described in this theoretical book proposal happened recently. So by imagining this book being rejected, Stross is essentially saying "truth is stranger than fiction". Which is an old truism, but we all need to be reminded of it now and then.
  - acdha 9y ago
    This is definitely a recurring theme for him, too – an incomplete summary of blog posts about the difficulty of writing near-future fiction: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/08/reality-is-broken-1.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/08/reality-... “... The TL:DR is that I have had to trash an entire draft of the next Laundry novel because I tried to satirize British politics, and British politics is beyond satire.” http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/psa-why-there-wont-be-a-third-.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/psa-why-... http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/05/sandbagged-by-the-near-future.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/05/sandbagg...

Is it satirizing publishers? It seemed more like a device for mocking people who are unwilling to consider conspiracy theories, but... Somehow it didn't feel like satire to me. Can't put a finger on why.

smacktoward 9y ago
It is satirizing current events. The joke is that the story of the WannaCrypt ransomware attack is so full of improbable developments that, if it had been written as fiction, no publisher would accept it. This has been another episode of the Hacker News Joke Explainer™
- JorgeGT 9y ago
  That's the good thing about reality: it doesn't have to conform to plausible narrative norms.
egypturnash 9y ago
The author of this is a professional fiction writer. He does a lot of near-future SF/F, often involving assorted spy agencies - some real, some fictional. He's made up a lot of crazy Secret Plots. All of the events described in this theoretical book proposal happened recently. So by imagining this book being rejected, Stross is essentially saying "truth is stranger than fiction". Which is an old truism, but we all need to be reminded of it now and then.
- acdha 9y ago
  This is definitely a recurring theme for him, too – an incomplete summary of blog posts about the difficulty of writing near-future fiction: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/08/reality-is-broken-1.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/08/reality-... “... The TL:DR is that I have had to trash an entire draft of the next Laundry novel because I tried to satirize British politics, and British politics is beyond satire.” http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/psa-why-there-wont-be-a-third-.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/psa-why-... http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/05/sandbagged-by-the-near-future.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/05/sandbagg...