5 ms·
I hoped for actual fiction, like "The Laundry Archives" (where computation can summon demons), "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" (about raising children AI),
by BoppreH 12y ago
I hoped for actual fiction, like "The Laundry Archives" (where computation can summon demons), "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" (about raising children AI), "The Last Question" (short story from Asimov) or "The Nine Billion Names of God" (about monks buying a computer for religious purposes).
All of the above are highly recommended, by the way.
- abstractbeliefs 12y agoYes, it feels much more like Computer-Science Fiction.
- eli_gottlieb 12y ago>I hoped for actual fiction, like "The Laundry Archives" (where computation can summon demons), Does Stross actually manage to use real theoretical CS in that series?
- jerf 12y agoWords are used in a manner that indicates he clearly knows what they are (which is not surprising given his background), but, generally, I'd say no. There's never been a point in the series where I feel like I super-extra understand something because I have a computer science background. But it's also at least plausible enough that I don't have to turn that part of my brain off.
- EdwardCoffin 12y agoHe implies that such things exist. I think he cites something Turing was supposed to have written (in-universe, I mean) that crossed over between CS and demonology. It doesn't go beyond plausible-sounding titles and breezy one-sentence synopses though. You can read a bit early on in the first book of the series where he talks a bit about this stuff, on Google books, page 17: https://books.google.ca/books?id=GfSGzhDcU2UC&lpg=PP1&dq=atrocity%20archives&pg=PA17#v=onepage&q=dho-nha&f=false https://books.google.ca/books?id=GfSGzhDcU2UC&lpg=PP1&dq=atr...
- KineticLensman 12y agoStross mentions a suppressed volume of Knuth, can't remember in which book
- EdwardCoffin 12y agoI'd forgotten about that. Stross's book shows its age here, it's volume 4. The bit is on page 134: https://books.google.ca/books?id=GfSGzhDcU2UC&lpg=PP1&dq=atrocity%20archives&pg=PA134#v=onepage&q=knuth&f=false https://books.google.ca/books?id=GfSGzhDcU2UC&lpg=PP1&dq=atr...
- ableal 12y ago> He implies that such things exist. This looks pretty damning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petersen_graph http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petersen_graph (Don't email it to cstross, I already did ;-)
- gshubert17 12y agoAnother of Stross's short stories, Antibodies [0], examines the consequences if P = NP, a key problem in theoretical computer science. [0] http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/toast/toast.html#antibodies http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/toast/to...
- cben 12y agoReminds me of Traveling Salesman (2012) [1], also set in P = NP and discussing the ethics of selling the algorithm to the government. (Literally discussing, it's a low-budget 4-men-in-a-room movie). I can't say the whole film is worth the time, but I really loved how in the first minutes it establishes it's alternative history by a single sentence: introducing a scientists who "in 2008 was awarded ... the fields medal for his proof of the nonexistence of one-way functions" [1] http://www.travellingsalesmanmovie.com/ http://www.travellingsalesmanmovie.com/
- cben 12y agoReminds me of Traveling Salesman (2012) [1], also set in P = NP and discussing the ethics of selling the algorithm to the government. (Literally discussing, it's a low-budget 4-men-in-a-room movie). I can't say the whole film is worth the time, but I really loved how in the first minutes it establishes it's alternative history by a single sentence: introducing a scientists who "in 2008 was awarded ... the fields medal for his proof of the nonexistence of one-way functions" [1] http://www.travellingsalesmanmovie.com/ http://www.travellingsalesmanmovie.com/
- cben 12y agoWhoa, that was a good read! Thanks, going to buy some books by Stross :-) [when I said "reminds me of Traveling Salesman (2012)" I just meant examining the consequences if P=NP; that was before I followed your link and was reminded how good sci-fi _should_ be — it absolutely pales in comparison to Antibodies.]
- cdjk 12y agoOr Wizard's Bane by Rick Cook, where a programmer gets summoned to a fantasy world and writes a magic compiler in forth.
- elevensies 12y agoThere are actual fiction books in the small italics at the bottoms of the blurbs.
- bigtunacan 12y agoJust finished The Atrocity Archives recently. Very entertaining.
- tjradcliffe 12y agoOr any of Stanislaw Lem's books of "fables for robots" like "The Cyberiad".
- fogus 12y ago> I hoped for actual fiction, like "The Laundry Archives" ... I think this subthread fills that desire nicely. :)
- sitkack 12y agoYou are like an urban gardener ...
- SixSigma 12y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_HARLIE_Was_One http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_HARLIE_Was_One I enjoyed
- Freaky 12y agoGreg Egan's "Disapora"[1] (where most of us literally live in computers) and "Permutation City"[2] (living in a cellular automata). Similar themes in Roger William's "The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect"[3] (an AI accidentally takes over the universe). 1: http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/DIASPORA/DIASPORA.html http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/DIASPORA/DIASPORA.h... 2: http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/PERMUTATION/Permutation.html http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/PERMUTATION/Permuta... 3: http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/ http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/
- frikk 12y ago6 tabs later and a $4 copy of Permuation City on its way to me from Amazon, I had to go back and find what started me on that rabbit hole. Thanks for the recommendation, that sounds fascinating.
- ngoldbaum 12y agoIf you don't mind highly technical hard SF, Schild's Ladder is also very good. It's not explicitly spelled out in the text, but it serves as a good pseudo-sequel to Diaspora. Egan's publisher recently ran off a new printing of many books in his back catalog that were hard to find in the US. http://www.amazon.com/Schilds-Ladder-Novel-Greg-Egan/dp/1597805440 http://www.amazon.com/Schilds-Ladder-Novel-Greg-Egan/dp/1597...
- frikk 12y agoAwesome, thanks for sharing. I'm a big hard scifi fan, although I tend to stick to the middle half of the last century (there's just so much good stuff!)
- posnet 12y ago+1 for Diaspora, if you have any interest in trans-humanism this book has one of the most plausible/believable post-singularity worlds I have encountered.
- MichaelGG 12y ago
- Crito 12y agoHere is one of my favourites: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v402/n6761/full/402465a0.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v402/n6761/full/402465a... (Despite the domain name, it is a science fiction piece. Nature publishes short science fiction under their 'Futures' column.)
- blacksmith_tb 12y agoKen Macleod's The Restoration Game has some fun CS plot twists, especially at the end of the novel...
- Freaky 12y agoAnd how could I forget: David Langford, "BLIT"[1], and "Different Kinds of Darkness"[2]. > BLIT (which stands for Berryman Logical Image Technique) is a short science-fiction story written by author David Langford. It features a setting where highly dangerous types of images called "basilisks" have been discovered; these images contain patterns within them that exploit flaws in the structure of the human mind to produce a lethal reaction, effectively "crashing" the mind the way a computer program crashes when given data that it fails to process. 1: http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/blit.htm http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/blit.htm 2: http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/different-kinds-of-darkness/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/different-kinds-of...
- ValentineSmith 12y agoI've been looking for good hacker-fi!! Danke!