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Singularity Sky
The main idea of the story, that a semi-sentient information-gathering alien system called the Festival comes to a backward farming planet and begins granting wishes -- in the form of advanced technology -- in exchange for stories and information, is only the seedbed for the larger exploration of the societally backward planetary system and what happens when the revolution you hoped to lead finally comes and it doesn't need you.
As a lifelong reader of science fiction, I hate that most SF is just as backward-looking as most Fantasy. Part of the problem with recent SF work is that we've come to a point in science where a lot of what made science fiction new has been done and what's coming is almost impossible to imagine, which I'll get to in a second. Space exploration can still be exciting but most new space stuff has been infected with the Star Trek Syndrome, as I call it, where everyone is boring and has no flaws, and the status quo rules. People just don't look to space exploration as exciting in real life so that translates to the SF work that people do. Real life science is changing so fast that it leaves even science fiction people in the dust. The result is the rise of 'Fantasy with robots and aliens' and 'Space Opera,' two facets of SF that seem to be dominating the landscape. Even Neal Stephenson, who was at the forefront of real technological future SF with The Diamond Age and Snow Crash has gone backward with Quicksilver and to a lesser extent Cryptonomicon.
The issue is The Singularity. This is Vernor Vinge's idea that technological progress proceeds at an exponential rate until there is a complete break with what came before. The End Of History, as people call it. This comes with the creation of a human-level AI that quickly proceeds past human-level, the invention of Upload technology that will allow us to live in computer systems and artificial bodies, something of that nature that we can't imagine. The problem with writing futuristic work in the time before a Singularity is that you can't see beyond it. Everything is different, so much so that all we can hope for is the fire up our imaginations to the point where we can begin to think in new ways.
One of the main goals of science fiction as I see it is to prepare us for the future. You can't hope to cope with the future if you've never been innoculated with new ideas. Singularity Sky is one of the first post-Singularity novels I've read that takes the idea seriously and examines it, allowing us to open our minds to the vast possibilities. Stross doesn't shy away from it like so many others. He uses the Festival's coming to show the speed of the change that comes with a technological Singularity and what happens to people in the aftermath. He also shows a culture trying desperately to hang on to old ways and the futility of doing that in the face of such rapid change.
There are problems with the book, mostly in the perennial bugbear of science-fiction, character development, but the rush of ideas glossed over that for me. This is only Mr. Stross's second book, I believe, the first being a collection of short stories called Toast: And Other Rusted Futures, that is high on my Must Read list. Charles Stross is a name that you will hopefully hear a lot more from in the coming years. His imagination is up there with the best and brightest and with his work as an accelerant my mind can't help but burn with new ideas. I hope more science fiction writers see this book and decide to move forward to meet him.
You can purchase Singularity Sky from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
I thought it was good.
You got to love a book that starts with it raining telephones.
-- -- The Dragon De Monsyne
Shhhhhhhh, I liked the Zahn Starwars books.
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Tech News, Reviews and Tutorials
and you thought the patent office was busy and overwhelmed now
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I just finished the worst book I have read in years -- "Chindi" by Jack McDermitt. It's awful from the very first line: "The Benjamin ... was at the extreme limit of its survey territory ..." Each chapter is worse than the last, each deft touch reveals it as the more tawdry. Chapters start with quotes from great but somehow sophomoric works of the 23rd century. The ship's captain is gorgeous but unfulfilled. Every character is bored with his or her life and life's work, desperate to relieve the tedium. Reading it was like watching a train wreck. Recommended, sort of.
This Festival alien sounds like Linux, it gives us technological gifts in exchange for stealing IP!
//Blessed are they that run around in circles, for they shall be known as wheels.
Piers Anthony -- SF's most prolific typist.
Hookers only suck when you pay extra.
Day 1: Set out on trip to nearest star (not counting Sun).
Year 1: Still on course.
Decade 1: Still on course.
Century 1: Dead, but ship still on course.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I'd suggest avoiding "reviews" then.
"most X suck" Best summarized as Sturgeon's Law: "90% of everything is crud." And hey, an SF author said it!
Q:How many libertarians does it take to stop a Panzer division? A:None. Obviously market forces will take care of it.
1. Taking the "human condition" to the extreme. Futures where sex is the only thing driving humanity. Of course, they're so much more advanced than us because everyone has sex with everyone.
There are lots of books about Europe.
m-
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
This is the problem with advances in technology that transcend the common man's ability to adapt. There are a few, a precious few who are ready and willing to advance themselves to the point of transhumanity. The rest of the race is not only unwilling, the entire conversation scares the holy bejesus out of them, and the last thing they want is a few folks receiving virtual godhood in their presense... ergo, ignorance, bgotry, and stupid fear (by the way one must also acknowlege not all that fear is stupid.)
...And I can get dmaxwell's moral indignatin at the apparent hypocracy of a man that proports to love liberty and then stomps on it in the face of personal gain... that would be somebody who's self interest transcend huma interest... unfortunately that is a significant part of the human condition and it's programmed into us at the genetic level. It is in fact, one of the larger problems that we must transcend if we expect to survive our own technological adolescence.
Talking about freedom and liberty seems high minded and right headed until, you live in a society that can read minds, share experienc at the speed of light, and manipulate matter... in that world what does freedom even look like? Liberty? Should I have the right to obliterate entire worlds simply because I have the power to? What qualifies as a threat, and how do we respond to it? Looking at our own government (the current executive in specific), have we got the wisdom, and emotional maturity to wield that kind of power.
These are arguements and discussions that deserve serious appreciation, and the tech keeps exploding forward so the time to make these choices is now...
Genda