3 ms·

Accelerando and Glasshouse fall in a "the ideas of one feed into the next" sequence that I find interesting to read in sequence... the first four of which are a

by shagie 2y ago

Accelerando and Glasshouse fall in a "the ideas of one feed into the next" sequence that I find interesting to read in sequence... the first four of which are available on the web. COMP.BASILISK FAQ https://www.nature.com/articles/44964 https://www.nature.com/articles/44964 BLIT https://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/blit.htm https://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/blit.htm Different Kinds of Darkness https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/different-kinds-of-darkness/ https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/different-kinds-o... Accelerando https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accelerando.html https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/acceler... ("Luckily, infowar turns out to be more survivable than nuclear war – especially once it is discovered that a simple anti-aliasing filter stops nine out of ten neural-wetware-crashing Langford fractals from causing anything worse than a mild headache.") Glasshouse by Charles Stross (side trip to The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime by Vernor Vinge as additional material for an alternative singularity) Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams (mentions averting a Vingeian singularity, though I see it more of a Strossian singularity that's at risk - and you've got suggestions of plot lines and backstory in Glasshouse that are not suggestions but rather main plot elements in Implied Spaces)

Pamar 2y ago
Personally I liked Implied Space more than anything by Stross. I.e.: for me Williams > Stross as an author in general.
mietek 2y ago
Many thanks for linking to these excellent stories by David Langford. I would like to recommend pretty much every single SF story and novel by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Czajkowski). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Tchaikovsky#Bibliography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Tchaikovsky#Bibliograph... Additional recommendations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39316191 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39316191
- shagie 2y ago
  The COMP.BASILISK FAQ is in the 'futures' section of Nature ... which has a number of other good short stories. https://www.nature.com/nature/articles?type=futures https://www.nature.com/nature/articles?type=futures --- For Adrian Tchaikovsky, I really liked the Children of Time series and the exploration of believable non-human minds. The last one got a bit weirder, but still very good. The Final Architecture is on my to read list (currently going through all of Coyote series by Allen Steele).
  - mietek 2y ago
    Adrian Tchaikovsky’s “Final Architecture” series is lots of fun. I also highly recommend the two “Bioforms” books. For standalone novels, I liked “Alien Clay” and “Doors of Eden” the most. For novellas, “Walking to Aldebaran” and “Elder Race”. Thank you for recommending “Implied Spaces” as well. Walter Jon Williams seems like a new author for me to follow.
    - shagie 2y ago
      I was first introduced to him with Dread Empire's Fall series which has one of the more realistic space battles between capital ships. There was a long gap between the first trilogy (2002 - 2005) and the second (2018 - 2022). Some of the ending of a trilogy is tiding up ends in a faster way that could have been left open if there was more certainty of the full arc, but I like it and it challenges a lot of the standard tropes of military science fiction. https://paulsemel.com/exclusive-interview-the-accidental-war-author-walter-jon-williams/ https://paulsemel.com/exclusive-interview-the-accidental-war... > Where did you get the original idea for The Accidental War and how different is the finished novel from that initial concept? > The story hasn’t changed much since I first worked out the series arc eighteen or so years ago. I had always planned to write nine to twelve books in the series, but the publisher decided to end the series after the third book [Conventions Of War] due to disappointing sales. > But those original books just kept selling. Initial sales weren’t spectacular, but the books kept going through one reprinting after another, and they never went out of print. Finally, years later, a new editor looked at the cumulative sales and made an offer for the books I would have happily written fifteen years ago. I like that the characters are all self serving characters with various grays of morality that are self serving in different ways.

by shagie 2y ago

Pamar 2y ago

Personally I liked Implied Space more than anything by Stross. I.e.: for me Williams > Stross as an author in general.

mietek 2y ago

Many thanks for linking to these excellent stories by David Langford. I would like to recommend pretty much every single SF story and novel by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Czajkowski). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Tchaikovsky#Bibliography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Tchaikovsky#Bibliograph... Additional recommendations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39316191 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39316191

shagie 2y ago
The COMP.BASILISK FAQ is in the 'futures' section of Nature ... which has a number of other good short stories. https://www.nature.com/nature/articles?type=futures https://www.nature.com/nature/articles?type=futures --- For Adrian Tchaikovsky, I really liked the Children of Time series and the exploration of believable non-human minds. The last one got a bit weirder, but still very good. The Final Architecture is on my to read list (currently going through all of Coyote series by Allen Steele).
- mietek 2y ago
  Adrian Tchaikovsky’s “Final Architecture” series is lots of fun. I also highly recommend the two “Bioforms” books. For standalone novels, I liked “Alien Clay” and “Doors of Eden” the most. For novellas, “Walking to Aldebaran” and “Elder Race”. Thank you for recommending “Implied Spaces” as well. Walter Jon Williams seems like a new author for me to follow.
  - shagie 2y ago
    I was first introduced to him with Dread Empire's Fall series which has one of the more realistic space battles between capital ships. There was a long gap between the first trilogy (2002 - 2005) and the second (2018 - 2022). Some of the ending of a trilogy is tiding up ends in a faster way that could have been left open if there was more certainty of the full arc, but I like it and it challenges a lot of the standard tropes of military science fiction. https://paulsemel.com/exclusive-interview-the-accidental-war-author-walter-jon-williams/ https://paulsemel.com/exclusive-interview-the-accidental-war... > Where did you get the original idea for The Accidental War and how different is the finished novel from that initial concept? > The story hasn’t changed much since I first worked out the series arc eighteen or so years ago. I had always planned to write nine to twelve books in the series, but the publisher decided to end the series after the third book [Conventions Of War] due to disappointing sales. > But those original books just kept selling. Initial sales weren’t spectacular, but the books kept going through one reprinting after another, and they never went out of print. Finally, years later, a new editor looked at the cumulative sales and made an offer for the books I would have happily written fifteen years ago. I like that the characters are all self serving characters with various grays of morality that are self serving in different ways.