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I once commented on HN how my favorite Sci Fi novel is Accelerando and the author, Charles Stross, replied to it suggesting I try his The Rapture of the Nerds h
by yboris 10mo ago
I once commented on HN how my favorite Sci Fi novel is Accelerando and the author, Charles Stross, replied to it suggesting I try his The Rapture of the Nerds he co-wrote with Cory Doctorow; I loved it when I read it too.
I love HN - it's basically the only website I visit these days (aside checking mail, watching YouTube, and gardening my GitHub repositories).
- number6 10mo agoAccelerando is one of my favourite too! Thanks for sharing the reply, always love book recommendations
- jaggederest 10mo agoIn a thematically similar but very different vein, Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time series was an enjoyable read. I also recommend Eric Nylund's work, specifically Signal to Noise and A Signal Shattered. Edit: Well, there you go, Children of Time had 23 mentions now that I've read down further. Disappointed to see Eric Nylund's work fade into obscurity, I rate him up with Neal Stephenson.
- watersb 10mo agoI haven't been able to find Eric Nylund's "Signal to Noise" and sequel "A Signsl Shattered" in ebook format. But they are strange and great.
- aspenmayer 10mo agoThose two novels of Nylund's really captured the "dark forest" concept well, though I won't say more so as to avoid spoilers. I haven't read the source material so I can't speak to the books, but the adaptations of 3 Body (Problem) that I've watched, both the Tencent and Netflix ones, also explore similar themes to Nylund's works. Heck, I just discovered that Liu Cixin coined the "dark forest" term, though he isn't the first to explore it.
- zaneyard 10mo agoI thought I recognized that name: Nylund also wrote some books for the Halo series which I enjoyed, although I was already a fan of the games.
- jaggederest 10mo agoI believe he was a staff writer for the Halo series in house as well, something like Marc Laidlaw at Valve, and the books emerged from internal storytelling written for the series. Very interesting stuff. I also highly recommend his older books Pawn's Dream, Dry Water, and especially A Game Of Universe. They're available on Kindle and part of the Unlimited program so easy to check out.
- troyvit 10mo agoI must finished my last book and grabbed Accelerando blind based on ya all's recommendation and damn it's great. Thank you!
- smoyer 10mo agoJust reread Accelerando ... Still awesome.
- yuzhun 10mo agoNot long ago I came across this book in an HN thread about AI and the future. The moment I saw the title, I knew I had to read it. Crypto, AI, collective intelligence — it hits all the right notes for me.
- bananaflag 10mo agoIf you want some other portrayals of the Singularity, see The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect and Friendship is Optimal (and also Caelum Est Conterrens)
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 10mo agoIt was good. Depressing, but good. While not singularity, some motiff and predictions seem to align. I would still add: Snow crash Rainbow's end
- nehal3m 10mo agoThe Singularity series by William Hertling were fun reads in that category too.
- hermitcrab 10mo agoI really appreciate Cory Doctorow's work on digital rights, enshittification and other topics, but I couldn't make it more than half way through 'Rapture of the nerds'. Just too strange, I couldn't connect to it. It is very original though. Some people will probably love it.
- parkersweb 10mo agoAmazon lists it as book 3 of 3 in a series - do you need to have read the first two?
- yboris 10mo agoNever read the first two, love Accelerando, unsure what I was missing; feels like a well-written self-contained story.