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I've long wanted to read Charles Stross and somehow haven't. (Well, I read a few chapters of Accelerando years ago and never finished it, despiting liking it qu
by edanm 3y ago
I've long wanted to read Charles Stross and somehow haven't. (Well, I read a few chapters of Accelerando years ago and never finished it, despiting liking it quite a bit.)
Do you think Glasshouse is a good place to start with his writing and is representative of his style? I loved Permutation City, one of my favorite books.
(I would've asked cstross himself but that would seem too awkward!)
- kybernetikos 3y agoI think glasshouse is truly excellent, but to me it's not terribly representative of the other works (most of which I also enjoy - they're just different).
- yboris 3y agoI once commented on HN how much I loved Accelerando and Charles Stross responded suggesting I read his The Rapture of the Nerds. I read it soon after and loved it. I very much enjoy the genre of people living inside computers; I welcome recommendations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rapture_of_the_Nerds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rapture_of_the_Nerds
- lxgr 3y ago> I very much enjoy the genre of people living inside computers; I welcome recommendations. "Ra" by qntm: https://qntm.org/ra https://qntm.org/ra
- mindcrime 3y agoDo you think Glasshouse is a good place to start with his writing and is representative of his style? Well... to me, I'd almost divide Stross' works into two tranches: the "The Laundry Files" books, and everything else. In that regard, I think Glasshouse is fairly representative of the "everything else" tranche. But even then, there's a fair amount of variance in his works. I wouldn't, for example, necessarily compare Halting State and Glasshouse, or Rule 34 and Singularity Sky. I guess that's a way of saying that while Stross has his favored themes and topics, he's far from formulaic and I don't feel like you can pigeon-hole his "style" too narrowly. That said, I haven't read every other work Stross has written, but I've read a pretty good chunk of them. And almost all of the "The Laundry Files" novels. Me personally, I recommend pretty much all of it. :-) EDIT: Just realized that there's really a 3rd major tranche of works in Stross' ouvre: the "The Merchant Princes" books. I forgot about those, as I haven't actually read any of them (shame, shame, I know...). All of what I've read of Stross to date is from the "The Laundry Files" series or the "everything else" batch, minus "The Merchant Princes".
- BillSaysThis 3y agoMerchant Princes series is about my favorite cstross!
- mindcrime 3y agoI actually have the first two or three books in that series on my shelf already, waiting to be read. Just haven't worked my way around to them yet. Soon, hopefully...
- gattr 3y agoI love both The Laundry Files and Merchant Princes/Empire Games, and wouldn't mind seeing a high-budget TV adaptation of them. mild spoiler At some point there's a bloody Project Orion-type spaceship taking off the Earth's surface.
- KineticLensman 3y ago> I forgot about those, as I haven't actually read any of them (shame, shame, I know...) It's a really great set of stories, nine in total now, and unlike The Laundry Files, a finalised / completed story arc. They evolve quite radically, from an initial portal fantasy (reporter finds herself in an apparently medieval parallel world), via trans-dimensional techno-thriller, multi-timeline developmental economics, to high-concept space war. Highly recommended. And the Laundry Files has to be the only series I've read where vampires use agile / scrum techniques to source their blood supplies, and where an Elven combined-arms battlegroup make the Waffen-SS look like soft jessies. Incidentally, the Laundry Files has its own separate spin-off; the New Management series. Also good fun.