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Tangentially, if you like Stross you may also like Peter Watts, who also has a backlist of work available online: http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm http://
by shoo 11y ago
Tangentially, if you like Stross you may also like Peter Watts, who also has a backlist of work available online: http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm
Watts' "Rifters" trilogy is there in its entirety. Also "Blindsight", which is fascinating. His latest book is "Echopraxia", a sequel to Blindsight, which isn't there, but you could always consider buying it if you like his other stuff!
Amusingly, as vampires are/were in fashion, both Stross and Watts have written books featuring nonstandard imaginative interpretations of vampires. Strossian vampires are explainable in the context of Laundry-universe magic, and enjoy investment banking [1], and Scrum practices. Wattsian vampires are resurrected from the dead by human genetic engineering, and have an unfortunate flaw (well, unfortunate for them, fortunate for the humans who enslave them) - "the Crucifix glitch" - that cause them to go into seizures when they see right angles [2][3].
[1] novel: "The Rhesus Chart" ;
[2] http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts/VampireDomestication.pdf http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts/VampireDomestication.pdf ;
[3] novel: "Blindsight" .
- david-given 11y agoSeconding _Blindsight_, which is a great book (which he describes as 'a philosophical rumination on the nature of consciousness with an unhealthy focus on space vampires') You won't think about consciousness the same way again. And it's free! This book also led me to discover _Portia Labiata_, a bewilderingly intelligent spider --- and so cute! https://www.flickr.com/photos/hirzi/6285232356 https://www.flickr.com/photos/hirzi/6285232356 There's an accessible paper on what makes it so interesting here: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Duane_Harland/publication/238671399_%27Eight-legged_cats%27_and_how_they_see_-_a_review_of_recent_research_on_jumping_spiders_%28Araneae_Salticidae%29/links/0deec525c9f5e52ae5000000.pdf http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Duane_Harland/publicatio... I wonder if Watts' suggestion that it timeshares its brain has any truth to it? _Echopraxia_ is also superb, but I thought it was disappointingly similar to _Blindsight_. That doesn't mean it's not in any way a good book, but it's very much based on the same themes. Be aware that the book called _Firefall_ is an omnibus edition of both books. I haven't read any of the Rifters books. Worth checking out?
- Hortinstein 11y agoI have not read Blindsight or Echopraxia, they are on my list, but I did really enjoy the Rifters series. It is an interesting take on the whole dystopian genre. Starfish was excellent.