Singularity Sky

Indomitus writes "I used to read tons of science fiction, nothing but for long stretches. Then I grew up and realized that most science fiction sucked. I look back on the time spent reading anything by Piers Anthony and know I'm going to be wishing I had those hours back when I'm older. Writers like Charlie Stross are the reason I know most SF sucks, because he does it so well. He fills this somewhat slim book with more ideas than any 10 other books from the section his work inhabits at the bookstore." Read on for the rest.

Singularity Sky
author	Charles Stross
pages	313
publisher	Berkley Pub Group
rating	9.9
reviewer	Matt Grommes
ISBN	0441010725
summary	A semi-sentient space travelling information gatherer called The Festival comes to a backward planet and instigates 1000 years of technological change in a month. The rulers of the world are not too happy and will use any means they have to stop the Festival, even if it means incurring the wrath of the super-AI that watches over the universe.

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.

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Don't knock Piers Anthony

[AtariAmarok]

It is easy to knock the guy if you think he is 100% Xanth. However, this is the same guy responsible for "Macroscope" (Nebula award nomination). The Cluster/Tarot series is also a worthy effort, with imaginative aliens that beat Niven's creations. There is also "OX", a decent attempt to make a novel around John Conway's "Game of Life".

Try branching out..

[bravehamster]

If you think that the majority of scifi sucks these days, you aren't looking very hard. Try Iain M. Banks, anything of his, and then look me in the eye and tell me scifi sucks. Ditto for Stephen Baxter, or David Brin, or Greg Bear or Gregory Benford. Hmm...that's a lot of B's....

Parent is an Amazon Repost

[Entropy Unleashed]

The parent link just reposted the spotlight review from Amazon, which is available here [amazon.com].

Re:Ecology of Slashdot comments

[rjelks]

While I agree with you in theory, you do realize that just because you haven't modified the default settings at the top of this page, others do set the page to "newest" on top. I like to customize it. I think people use most of their mod points on the newest story, so the old comments aren't read as much. You could stop wasting your time actually working and just visit the site more often. :)

-

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Author is a Slashdot Reader?

[Entropy Unleashed]

In one of the Amazon reviews [amazon.com] it was mentioned that the author apparently is a Slashdot reader. If so, it would be quite interesting to hear about his experiences in writing and publishing a science fiction novel today. Do any other /.ers have questions that he would be able to shed light on?

Re:Don't knock Piers Anthony

[moving_comfort]

Yes, Macroscope - one of my all-time favorite SF novels. P.A.'s existance is justified by this work.

Re:Double edged sword

[Mukaikubo]

Although it doesn't involve nuclear engines, I'd recommend the Firestar series by... um... Flynn. (I can't get to a search engine or Amazon, so working off memory- if Flynn fails, search for Firestar).

It's about, in extremely broad terms, how mankind goes from more or less current state to one where space travel is accepted as routine, unremarkable, and cheap, there's several large space stations in orbit, et cetera et cetera... basically, every space geek's dream of what could happen in the next 50 years.

For the love of God, though, stop after Rogue Star, the second book. The last two are a dramatic dropoff in quality.

Re:Don't knock Piers Anthony

[hoggoth]

> If you say that, then you don't realize that PA was parodying the entire Wizard of OZ/Land of OZ series of books, with an adult twist.

No, I "get it". It still sucked.

Sturgeon's Revelation

[Tim Ward]

Grew up and realised that:

most science fiction sucked

Yes, of course.

May I refer you to Sturgeon's Revelation [catb.org].

Early Works by Anthony

[supersmike]

Check out the Omnivor/Orn/Ox series he wrote back in the day. That was good writing. The first Xanth was fun too. But yes, most of his recent work is just so much verbal masturbation

Author website

[charlie]

Hi there.

If you want to read more of my stuff, there are some (older) stories on my fiction pages [antipope.org].

If you want to know when the sequel, "Iron Sunrise", is due out (and the other books I've got coming), see my books FAQ [antipope.org].

And there is of course the obligatory weblog, but because it's CGI-mediated and my server's decidedly on the elderly side I'm not going to post the URL here. (If you want it badly enough and you're clueful you'll find it :)

Re:A Colder War

[charlie]

"A Colder War" was a dry run for a novel.

That novel, "The Atrocity Archives", is due out in hardcover in the US this April/May.

You can pre-order it from Amazon.com here [amazon.com].

Try reading

[Creepy Crawler]

"Permutation City" by Greg Egan.

The year is around 2054 and rudimentary AI's are here. People have been digitized, but only run at the maximum allowed then at 1/17 time ratio.

The book deals with spam filters (baneysian and adaptive ai - if the spam filter acts as you, is it really avoiding what you want?), AI, duplication of the mind, evolution, government.. There's some pretty heavy theory in this book.

What I can tell is it's mainly sold in Australia and UK as mine's pried only as such. I got my copy at a 1/2 priced book store here in Indiana.

Re:Double edged sword

[ChaosDiscord]

Unfortunately, most Sci-Fi writers fall into two categories:

Two categories that I suspect you would define as crap. Always remember, 90% of everything is crap. [jargon.net]

Taking the "human condition" to the extreme.

It's a common technique in fiction to try and distill down something "pure" about humanity, to reveal things hidden by day-to-day life. Typically this is done by creating an unusual setting to eliminate reader's preconceived notions. You might do this by trapping children on an island [gerenser.com], sending someone to fictional lands [jaffebros.com], or having animals play the parts of humans [k-1.com]. That you might set people into a future distopia [online-literature.com] or future utopia [wegrokit.com] doesn't change the basic technique.

Futures where sex is the only thing driving humanity.

Geez, as a kid I sought out the slightly racier sci-fi and I never saw anything that bad. Sure, I saw books that had alot of sex in them (looks to Heinlein), but where it's the only driving force? Perhaps you're confusing erotica set in a sci-fi setting with the wide variety of sci-fi options.

I hate to break it to the authors, but this sort of society would quickly degrade due to a lack of scientific focus. Not to mention that human feelings on the subject are actually pretty immutable. (No matter what anyone says.)

I hate to break it to you, but many people would argue that lots of human advancement is the indirect result of a desire for nookie. Even ignoring the iffy assumption that human feelings are immutable, if they are immutable they are immutable in that people want sex; not real complicated.

Most of them have space travel as a background to get to a fantasy-like world.

Heaven above, was your reading limited to erotica and Stasheff [fantasticfiction.co.uk]? Yes, there is alot of great sci-fi that doesn't fit into these two categories. Did Heinlein, Clarke, Orwell, and Asimov never exist? What in the world are you looking for?

Personally, I thought Heinlen's juveniles were the best examples of Sci-Fi.

Oh, that's what you're looking for. Boy's adventure stories and pulp adventure. Great stuff, I enjoy them myself, but it's an amazingly small subset of sci-fi. Sci-fi includes a wide variety of writing, just like historical fiction, fantasy, or modern stories.

science fiction: what to read and what to avoid

[lkcl]

i have seven shelves six feet long stacked with sci-fi books, mostly good and some bad. at one point i stopped buying sci-fi books because there weren't any that were, in my opinion, any good (around 2000) and i had to wait. piers anthony is childish: the books are great for children. my advice is that you not read any of his books after the time when he obtained a computer, i.e. after mars in the eternity series. so is anne mccaffrey but she has a specific purpose in her writing: to co-author books with someone who brings a particular topic and experience to the fore: for example acorna the unicorn book is actually about child slave labour, and the ship who fought is about rape. if you want _really_ good sci-fi books to read, then go for the "masterworks" series, for example "first and last men" by olaf stapledon is incredible: every other sci-fi book a la "space opera" genre just "fills in the gaps" left by first and last men. basically, the masterworks books are what sci-fi writers read. if you want _incredible_ stories, read orson scott card's books - all of them. pay particular attention to the alvin maker series, people from the US. you will find that "book 2" of the trilogy, which is actually the second half of book 1 outside of the US, is not available on the shelves. the reason is because the book covers the murder of 10,000 native red indians. if you want good space opera, i recommend ken macleod (although his politics are a little odd, i.e. he could be branded a commie 20 years ago, until you get to his more recent works where it actually starts to make sense in a universe perspective and things get messy). and also for space opera: greg bear, but greg bear takes getting used to. _really_ getting used to. i do NOT recommend "talking heads" as a first read. also for space opera, alasdair reynolds, peter f hamilton and iain m. banks. alasdair reynolds is very new on the scene, yet his books are extremely well written. peter f hamilton's books are fantastic: i love them, although "a quantum murder" i found disturbing. iain m banks' books are really good, although i would never have read them if i had read "the wasp factory" first. banks' books are very graphic in their violence (but not in a "horror" way) but they are also funny and sad as well as deep and illustrate futility of life. i thoroughly recommend "the player of games" if you want to be shell-shocked even right up to the end of the book. what else. for space opera, don't bother with those stupid nine books by that idiot author who did all those different species, damn i wasted my money on those. there is so much to choose from, you just have to be selective: to make a blanket statememt that time has been wasted is rather disappointing to hear.

Re:Does it so well?

[SpinningAround]

You are so right...Rendezvous With Rama is one of the seminal works of SF.

Rama is perhaps the first SF book I read where alien technology is just incomprehensible to humans. Rama comes, Rama goes and we are not much the wiser at the end of the book about what it is. Far more likely than the Star Trek ubiquitous humanoid scenario.

Sadly the 4 follow-up books (which I seem to recall are co-written with someone) are a waste of paper.

Re:Does it so well?

[critter_hunter]

I believe both book and screenplay were written in parallel, and IMDB seem to confirm that.

The screenplay was written primarily by Kubrick and the novel primarily by Clarke, each working simultaneously and also providing feedback to the other. As the story went through many revisions, changes in the novel were taken over into the screenplay and vice versa. It was also unclear whether film or novel would be released first; in the end it was the film. Kubrick was to have been credited as second author of the novel, but in the end was not. It is believed that Kubrick deliberately withheld his approval of the novel as to not hurt the release of the film

IMDB trivia for 2001: A Space Odyssey [imdb.com]