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Question (JesusLasVegas):

> Hallo Charles. I'm in the UK. I just wrote a book and (it looks like) a good publishing house are going to pick it up. It is sort of sci-fi.
>
> My question: all agents I've spoken to think that while selling a book to publishers it's best to avoid using the term "sci-fi" if possible. Ideally they want to sneak sci-fi stuff in, "under the radar", so it can get the sort of backing that only a big publisher can provide.
>
> How do you feel about this? Cheers.

Answer (cstross):

> For starters, there's a long-standing (50 year old) flame war within the field over whether it's "sci-fi" or "SF".
>
> Secondly, all these labels boil down to is a bunch of marketing categories that tell bookshop staff where to file the product (which they don't know from a hole in the road) on the shelves where customers can find it. SF has traditionally been looked down on by the literary establishment because, to be honest, much early SF was execrably badly written -- but these days the significance of the pigeon hole is fading; we have serious mainstream authors writing stuff that is I-can't-believe-it's-not-SF, and SF authors breaking into the mainstream. If you view them as tags that point to shelves in bricks-and-mortar bookshops, how long are these genre categories going to survive in the age of the internet?
>
> Note: this skepticism breaks down in the face of, for example, the German publishing sector, where booksellers are a lot stuffier and more hidebound over what is or is not acceptable as literature.



Question (cavedave):

> You write very well about we interact with technology nowdays. The use of smartphones, email and social networking in Halting State and Rule 34 is very believable.
> With the possible exception of Sherlock very few pieces of fiction actually use these techniques.
> In horror films "out of coverage" has become a cliche. If All Movies Had Smartphones is a funny video on how writers can't create plots that take technology into account.
>
> How are you doing this right and nearly everyone else isnt?
>
> Are you planning a kickstarter game like Neal Stephenson? If you did what would it be about?

Answer (cstross):

> Reverse order: no, I'm not planning a kickstarter game. And I'm not really a game designer. (Writing novels takes up about 100% of my available working time.)
>
> How am I doing this "right" ... well, I have a CS degree and a history that includes working as a software developer and being a computer magazine columnist back during the 1990s. I guess I simply paid attention to the social effects of the IT revolution as I lived through it.
>
> An important factor to note is that it's rare for anyone to sell a first novel written before they turned 30-35; long-format fiction tends to require a bunch of experience of human life that takes time to acquire. So your average mid-career novelist is in their forties to fifties! In consequence, most established novelists are writing books informed by experiences gained in their youth. Middle age is not the best time to be changing smartphones every six months or adopting new technology platforms -- because we tend to get slower and less accommodating to change as we age. So we're currently living with a generation of established novelists who are embarrassingly out of date with respect to social networking, internet skills, and so on.
>
> (I was an early adopter: have been on the internet continuously since late 1989, barring a six-month loss of access in the early 90s.)
>



Question (JesusLasVegas):

> Great answer, thanks.
>
> Could you give an example or two of large British publishers that you think are doing a good job in this respect? Ignoring genre barriers, taking risks etc?

Answer (cstross):

> AhahahaHA!!
>
> Sorry, no I can't. But not for the reason you think. Thing is, my agent is based in New York. And due to a historic accident, my publishing track is primarily American -- I'm sold into the UK almost as a foreign import! So I'm quite out of touch with what's going on in UK publishing. (Even my Kindle is geared to the US store.)



Question (cheradenine_Zakalwie):

> Do you ever read something someone else has written and think "damn, now I cant do that". Who do you read?
> (if you have time)

Answer (cstross):

> Yes, I sometimes get the "Damn, too late, [X] got there first" idea. But seriously? I have time to write 1-2 novels per year, and get roughly novel-sized ideas every month. I have to perform triage on my own writing impulses. So it's usually quite easy to shrug and write something else instead.
>
> What I read: while I'm writing, I tend to go off reading fiction for relaxation -- especially the challenging stuff. It's too much like the day job. When I do get to chow down on a book, I try to read ones that are nothing like what I'm writing. So, as I'm currently working on a space opera (of sorts) I'm mostly indulging in urban fantasy.



Question (revjeremyduncan):

> For someone who is unfamiliar with your work, what book would you suggest as a good starting point (if it's available for Kindle, I will get it as soon as I see your answer)?
>
> Any plans to follow in L. Ron's footsteps and start a religion?

Answer (cstross):

> I'm an atheist (subtype: generally agree with Richard Dawkins but think he could be slightly more polite; special twist: I was raised in British reform Judaism, which is not like American reform Judaism, much less any other strain of organised religion). So: no cults here.
>
> Starting points: for a sampler, you could try my short story collection "Wireless". Which contains one novella that scooped a Locus award, and one that won a Hugo, and covers a range of different styles.
>
> Otherwise ... if you like spy thrillers/Lovecraftiana, try "The Atrocity Archives", if you like space opera try "Singularity Sky"[], if you like singularity-fic try "Accelerando", if you like near-future thrillers try "Halting State".
>
> [] Which was originally titled "Festival of Fools"; the "Singularity Sky" title was imposed on it by editorial fiat ("hey, isn't the singularity kind of hot this month? Let's change the title!").



Question (AndrewDowning):

> Can you please expand on that?
> In what way did your views change?
> Accelerando is one of my all time favourites.

Answer (cstross):

> Sure. See: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/06/reality-check-1.html
>
> Note that my views fluctuate wildly. I have another singularity novel coming out this September 4th, co-written with Cory Doctorow: "The Rapture of the Nerds":
>
> http://www.amazon.com/The-Rapture-Nerds-Cory-Doctorow/dp/0765329107/



Question (JesusLasVegas):

> Did you end up with an American agent because all the British agents passed on you? Or did you actually want to do things that way?

Answer (cstross):

> A bit of both. I wanted an agent who would actually sell stuff. After two British agents failed comprehensively, I was reading Locus (the SF field's trade journal) and noticed a press release about an experienced editor leaving her job to join an agent in setting up a new agency. And I went "aha!" -- because what you need is an agent who knows the industry but who doesn't have a huge list of famous clients whose needs will inevitably be put ahead of you. So I emailed her, and ... well, 11 years later I am the client listed at the top of her masthead!



Question (slimme_shady):

> hahahha I'm 15 now. Every time when i have to do an assignment for school, i don't really know how to start, could you give me some advice, please?

Answer (cstross):

> Nope. Because I'm nearly a third of a century older than you, and any advice I could give you about school assignments would be slightly out of date ...!



Question (cheradenine_Zakalwie):

> Wow, I didn't realise the ideas flew in so fast. Is it morbid to ask if you worry about getting it all written before you die? (Im thinking of Terry Pratchett here...)

Answer (cstross):

> Yes, I worry about that. I'm 47. I reckon I can count on 30 more writing years, averaging a book a year (I can't keep up the 2-2.5 a year I used to do these days). And these days I've gotten round to wondering, for each new idea, "do I want to be remembered for this?" before I get to the point of spending a year on it.



(continued below)

Can I give you a list? Imma give you a list with a little from each category. I LOVE books and posts like this!

Non-fiction or Books About Things:

The Lost City of Z: In 1925, the legendary British explorer Percy Fawcett ventured into the Amazon jungle, in search of a fabled civilization. He never returned. Over the years countless perished trying to find evidence of his party and the place he called “The Lost City of Z.” In this masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, journalist David Grann interweaves the spellbinding stories of Fawcett’s quest for “Z” and his own journey into the deadly jungle, as he unravels the greatest exploration mystery of the twentieth century. Cumberbatch will play him in the movie version of this.

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers: Hilariously gross and just super interesting. Her writing is like a non-fiction Terry Pratchett. Everything she's written is great, but this one is my favorite.

Devil in the White City: All about HH Holmes and his murder hotel during the Chicago World's Fair. Incredibly well-written and interesting.

The Outlaw Trail: Written in 1920 by the first superintendent of Capitol Reef National Park (aka, the area around Robber's Roost). He went around interviewing the guys who were still alive from the original Wild Bunch, plus some of the other outlaws that were active during that time. Never read anything else with actual interviews from these guys and it's a little slice of life from the end of the Wild West.

Fiction, Fantasy, Sci-Fi:

Here I'm only going to give you the less known stuff. You can find Sanderson (light epic fantasy), Pratchett (humor / satire fantasy), Adams (humor fantasy), etc easily in any bookstore. They are fantastic and should be read, but they are easy to find. I suggest:

The Cloud Roads: Martha Wells is an anthropologist and it shows in her world building in every series. She creates societies instead of landscapes. These are very character-driven and sometimes emotional.

The Lion of Senet: Jennifer Fallon starts a great political thriller series with this book. If you like shows like House of Cards or things where there's a lot of political plotting, sudden twists, and a dash of science v. religion, then you'll love these.

The Book of Joby: Do you want to cry? This book will make you cry. Mix arthurian legend with some God & Devil archetypes and it's just this very powerful story. Even though it deals with religious themes and icons, I wouldn't say it's a religious book. Reads more like mythology.

On Basilisk Station: Awesome military space opera. Really good sci-fi.

Grimspace: Pulpy space opera. Brain bubble gum instead of serious reading. But that's fun sometimes too!

Additional notes...

Basic Background

• All GitS stories start out as abstract and confusing -- they essentially drop you into the middle of a mission and are set in the future, amidst a bunch of tech and terminology that you need to learn and understand on the fly. We're talking spy, cloack-and-dagger, intrigue, conspiracy, mystery. This is a good thing.
  
  
• The movies are dense and the series take some time to weave together. It helps to be patient and pay attention, both to the dialogue and to the details that you see in both the foreground and background.
  
  
• The Matrix was heavily influenced by the first movie, and there are even direct, frame-for-frame visual shout outs to the first GitS film in The Matrix.
  
  
• If you enjoy sci-fi like Children of Men, Blade Runner, The Zero Theorem or even Her, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or the Bourne series then you're in for a treat.
  
  
• Ghost in the Shell, as a whole, is the visual successor to Neuromancer, by William Gibson.
  
  Recommended Viewing Order
  
  Start with the first film. It's the foundation for everything else.
  
  
• The first film is an adaptation that differs from the manga, so if you like the movie and then go back and read the manga you won't be slogging through the exact same thing twice.
  
  
• The original came out on Blu-ray [Amazon] only two days ago (yay!), and the new version will be of much better video and audio quality than the initial 1995 version (although the subtitles are apparently not as good).
  
  
• The dubbed voice acting is, for a change, pretty great, so feel free to watch in English or Japanese. The subtitles might be worth using, as the English dub isn't as clearly worded as the original text (if I remember correctly).
  
  
• After you watch the first film, check this out.
  
  Next, I'd watch the two Stand Alone Complex series
  
  
• Both are fantastic. If you watch the first movie first you'll know all or most of the characters. The pacing is much easier to digest and you get to know the characters a lot better. The story is still abstract, twisting and turning... but it's fun to unravel the mystery with our heroes. Makes for great binge watching.
  
  You can watch the second movie or the four Arise episodes in any order.
  
  
• The second movie is probably the most dense, convoluted story in the series. It also has the best animation and is a lot of fun. Now that I think more about it, I think I'd save this for last. But you can really watch it whenever you want, so long as you've finished the first film (it won't otherwise make much sense).
  
  
• Arise is an origin story reboot. The characters have different backgrounds and how they meet is much different than in the original story. There are a number of homages or references to the original movie as well. Compared to the rest of the GitS stuff, Arise felt like lighter fare in terms of its complexity and sophistication. I enjoyed Arise, but this little mini-series is probably my least favorite content within the GitS universe.
  
  Primer Information About the Wider GitS world (Mild Spoilers)
  
  The below is written in a block so as to make provide optical camouflage against accidentally catching spoilers if you don't want to read them.
  
  The goal of this section is to help ease you into understanding the politics and organization of the GitS world.
  
  The GitS world is set in Japan, but there are also international players. Japan has gone to war against other (made up) nations (sorta like Kazakstan), and we meet some of the ex-soldiers. Cybernetic technology is now well integrated into society, but was most extensively developed, weaponized and used by the military. At the most basic level, almost everyone now has brain implants. These implants are the foundation of most of the philosophical discussion in the GitS world. They're also the foundation for most of the crime, communication and investigation. Some people only have those basic neural implants, while others are entirely or almost entirely cybernetic. Much of the philosophical discussion, then, is about the line between the physical body and the soul (ghost), about what makes us individual and unique.
  
  Americans are not the good guys (in many respects, the series extrapolates on how WWII influenced and continues to influence Japan's development and national identity). The Japanese government is divided into self-contained groups: ministries and sections. We follow Section 9. On the surface these groups all work together, but there's really a lot of backstabbing and secret warfare between the groups.
  
  I think that's enough to get you started.
  
  tl;dr: Definitely watch - one of my favorite creations of everything of all time. Enjoy!

This is not exactly what you're looking for but may be close enough.

Jack McDevitt has a series of novels about 2 antiquities dealers in future. Typically they come across an unusual artifact or story. They then have to work out the truth in a similar fashion to the detective mysteries you mention.

They are called the Alex Benedict novels. They are an easy read but raise interesting questions IMHO. All but the first are told from the PoV of Chase Kolpath, Alex Benedict's pilot and partner.

I started with the third novel, Seeker, which won the Nebula award.

I've read them all and found them entertaining, though somewhat repetitive in some plot devices. You don't have to start at the beginning of the series.

FWIW Jack McDevitt has a second group of books called The Academy series. I've read a few of them and liked them but prefer the Alex Benedict novels.

Hope this helps. You might also ask for help in /r/printsf - a sub dedicated to written scifi.

Edit: I also thought of another story that contains an pretty good mystery. It's called Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future. It has a great ending.

Peter Watts - Blindsight - kinda a harder form of sci fi, great detail about some hard sci fi style like post-scarcity methods, genetic and psychological tweaking, and wow the aliens in this one are really alien Book is available online for free because the author is just that cool.

M. J. Locke - Up Against It - Easier, a young adult sort of sci fi. Ice as a valuable commodity, hackable nanobug poop, and a great AI narrative. Also, one of the main characters has a very very Ripley feel about her, I think you'll like that.

David Simpson - The Post-human series - Just get the whole thing, the books are speedreaders for me. Kinda pulpy, but follows the whole of humanity's awakening to the multiverse and trans-human technology. Does and amazing job of ethics in the age of moddable bodies and backup brains. I'm not spoiling anything for you, but this might be the easiest read of this list. Was free for a while on amazon, now it's only $3

P.J. Haarsma - Virus on Orbis 1 - if you like that young adult feel this and the entire Softwire series should hold you over nicely. Clone babies on a interstellar seed ship, and one of them has a rare superpower, though he doesn't know it. Another AI-centric story, but more abstract with the imagery.

Also, my favorite short story - Alfred Bester- The Stars My Destination - humans have always been able to teleport, but what secrets does Gully Foyle, a proven deadbrain burnout, hold that could revolutionize the discovery again? A pretty great retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo. should be public domain by now...

First of all, that's amazing. Great idea for a dice box or dice rolling tray.

Have you considered something like a holder for minis, dice, pens/pencils? Basically little compartments inside for a player kit. I've seen a websites selling custom wooden enclosures for dice, pens, and minis for D&D players but a copy of the Necronomicon for a CoC game would be amazing.

Book ideas:

• There are a lot of collections of HP Lovecraft tales, many of which have great covers. I would particularly look for ones that have especially popular titles on their covers. "Call of Cthulhu and other tales" looks more fun than "Tales of HP Lovecraft." Of course, cool looking covers trumps all. https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Cthulhu-Leatherbound-Classics-Collection/dp/1435162552/
  
• King in Yellow (as SamEire93 said)
  
• Necronomicon (as you said)
  
• Der Hexenhammer - an actual book often referenced in CoC and with a really cool name.
  
• Malleus maleficarum - A translation of the Der Hexenhammer which still has a cool name.
  
• The Lesser Key of Solomon - A real book sometimes used in CoC games and which has a cool cover. https://smile.amazon.com/Lesser-Key-Solomon-Aleister-Crowley/dp/0998136417
  
• Book of the Dead (Egyptian version) - An actual book often referenced in CoC and with a really cool name.
  
• The Book of Eibon - I'm not sure there are any decent looking copies that exist, but the concept is good.
  
• Penny Dreadfuls: Sensational Tales of Terror - has a cool looking cover: https://www.amazon.com/Penny-Dreadfuls-Sensational-Leatherbound-Collection/dp/1435162765/
  
• Lovecraft Country - Maybe? It's a great book so I'd feel a little weird having it hollowed out, but a fan might really like the idea.

Based on your list, it seems you're a video gamer, too. Nice, so some of your fiction titles reflect that.

• Phantoms by Dean Koontz -- I'm guessing you like Silent Hill or Resident Evil type games. While this book by Koontz doesn't involve zombies, it is centered around a mysterious town. Suddenly everyone in a small American town has disappeared and it's up to a visiting sister and a sheriff to solve the mystery. The plot ramps up quickly and escalates (big time), and it's one of my favorite books. Lots of action, too, with great mix of horror (and a little sci-fi). While Dean Koontz has written some clunkers, early Dean Koontz really rocked.
  
  Kindlie link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001RWQVSK/
  
  
• Andromeda Strain by Micheal Crichton -- One of Crichton's earliest novels and it deals with a team of scientists trapped in a facility as they try to contain a viral outbreak that can destroy the world, but they are running out of time. It's a really thrilling read and was made into a great film, too. Your titles you posted often deals with pandemics or viral attacks so I figured you'd enjoy this.
  
  Kindlie link: https://www.amazon.com/Andromeda-Strain-Michael-Crichton-ebook/dp/B007UH4EPS/
  
  
• Sphere by Micheal Crichton -- Since you mentioned Dead Space series so here's some sci-fi horror. Another one of my favorites from Crichton. While it does deal with aliens and a spaceship, it's actually set on Earth, where instead of something buried in ice (like with The Thing), an alien ship is deep underwater. A team of scientists have to delve deep into the ocean and try to breach the alien ship known as the Sphere.
  
  Kindlie link: https://www.amazon.com/Sphere-Michael-Crichton-ebook/dp/B007UH4G9C/
  
  
• Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell -- this is the horror/sci-fi short story that the The Thing and it's remakes were based on. While written in 1938, it's still a great read (and available on Kindle). The author, Campbell, was a giant figure in the Golden Age of Science Fiction as he was also the editor of Astounding Fiction Magazine, the landmark magazine that ushered in Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Theodore Sturgeon, AE Van Vogt, Henry Kuttner and other legendary sci-fi writers.
  
  Kindlie link: https://www.amazon.com/Goes-There-RosettaBooks-into-Film-ebook/dp/B003XVYLGW
  
  
• Vault of the Beast by A.E. Van Vogt -- another sci-fi horror story from the Golden Age of Science Fiction, this one a short story (on Kindle for only $1.49). Van Vogt's stories are a huge influence on horror and sci-fi writers, influencing Stephen King, Koontz, John Carpenter and many others. I love this creepy tale that is a must for lovers of the The Thing. Here's the first line: "The creature crept. It whimpered from fear and pain, a thing, slobbering sound horrible to hear. Shapeless, formless thing yet changing shape and form with every jerky movement. It crept along the corridor of the space freighter [...]"
  
  Kindlie link: https://www.amazon.com/Vault-Beast-E-van-Vogt-ebook/dp/B001M0N0FO
  
  
• The Nightrunners by Joe R. Landsale or The Drive-In by Joe R. Lansdale -- since you like Evil Dead, Joe R. Lansdale is known for his mix of occasional humor and extreme horror. Like the Evil Dead films, he can get gory, but not at the sacrifice at making creative plots and great characters. Lansdale does also westerns, texas noir, crime novels, etc, which are all great, so he covers a ton of genres. Early Lansdale tended to do more horror, however, as you see from these two books. One of my favorite authors, and great if you want some hi-octane fun.
  
  Kindlie link Nightrunners: https://www.amazon.com/Nightrunners-Joe-R-Lansdale-ebook/dp/B00634UDHC
  
  Kindlie link The Drive-in (book 1 of 3): https://www.amazon.com/Drive-Joe-R-Lansdale-ebook/dp/B00H1L5D9E
  
  
• Natsuo Kirino horror novels (Real World / Out / Grotesque) -- Since you mentioned The Ring which was originally written by Japanese author Koji Suzuki, so maybe try some horror from other Japanese authors. Kirino's works are equally unsettling reads, so I'd recommend checking any of her titles out. You could also try Ryu Murakami, who writes some twisted stuff, like In Miso Soup or Coin Locker Babies.
  
  I also agree with others for their recommendations for Laird Barron, John Langan, Shirley Jackson, Dan Simmons, H.P. Lovecraft, Paul Tremblay, and of course Stephen King. For King, try the Dark Tower series as that's a mix of Western and horror, kind of like if Red Dead Redemption video game went into the horror territory but on an epic scale. Great series. Also check out The Stand which is epic post-apocalyptic tale. I quite liked The Shining as someone else has mentioned and I also liked Salem's Lot.
  
  Lastly, for a great (and free) short story that is a nice twist on The Thing, check out this story that has a similar premise, only it's from the alien's point of view. It was quite cool, and an interesting idea to see how things would look like from the alien's side.
  
  All the Painted Stars by Gwendolyn Clare -- available to read online here at Clarkesworld Magazine website
  
  
  

Greetings! Acquiring editor and freelance editor here. Thought I'd give you some info on what I know to be the TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING ROUTE.

Agents are the way to go for traditional publishing. Get a good query letter, a nice synopsis, and a polished manuscript. If you have a good hook and a clean manuscript, then you're in the green.

Check out your favorite authors (the ones that have similar work to your own) and find their agents. See about their agencies as possible places to send queries.


If you're looking for editors (which you should only do once you've done a good deal of revising yourself), a great place to try is your favorite authors again! Check out their publishers and find out if they use in-house or freelance editors. See if you can get in contact with them. Of course, this is going to cost some cash money as this level of editor runs $30-60/hour, if not more.

On the opposite end, college students can make for adequate proofreaders for much less money. However, they won't be the best help when it comes to actual revisions.

When it comes down to it, you need a professional for professional work. There are some editors here on the writing subreddits with varying degrees of skill and expertise. I've done work for fellow redditors at relatively low prices (relatively is the key phrase, as even a 50% discount is putting you at $15/hour) with some good success. If you want more info, send me a PM and I can give you the lowdown on hiring a freelance editor (preferably a local editor so you can go shake their hand).

Even self publications need good editors, though. I spoke briefly with the author of Avagadro Corp. who spoke to the difference in the sales of his first two self-published novels. His first went through low quality editors and he got a lot of flak for it. The second time through, he paid a pro and got great results! William Hertling: He's even got a book on how to maximize the chance of your self publication to hit critical mass.

1. A homophone for "whine". Young children can be very whiny. I teach young children and would love to have this turtle puppet for the kids in my class. Puppets are very helpful, particularly when kids are in a "whiny" mood.
   
   
2. Brooms have bristles. So do toothbrushes. I could use a new toothbrush. I mean, do ya'll want to sit in Potions class next to the girl with stinky breath?! Didn't think so.
   
   
3. This rabbit in a hat puppet is not only super cute but a good introduction to transmogrification (I think that's the right word, but classes haven't started yet so how should I know?!)
   
   
4. Books have words and words have power. Pontypool Changes Everything is a book about the power of words and how they change people. BTW, it's PontyPOOL not PONTYpool, Weasley!
   
   
5. These elephant harem pants are not only adorable but will help keep the junk in my trunk nice and toasty in RAoA's big old drafty castle. I'm assuming we're all moving into a castle, right? RIGHT?!
   
   B) Every good superhero needs a specialized weapon. As a budding witch, I would like a sonic screwdriver to aid in my superhero-ish shenanigans. Did I mention this particular screwdriver has a super secret uv pen and uv light so I can write super secret messages to my super secret companions?! If that's not magic, I don't know what is!

Year Zero by Rob Reid. It's essentially a book about record labels finding out that aliens have been listening to [and illegally downloading] all of earth's music for decades. When they find out about this, the Alien's realize that they owe Earth an unfathomable amount of money and it would be impossible to ever pay it all. So two aliens hire a lawyer, Nick Carter to handle the case. They hope he can strike a licensing agreement, and the fate of Earth rests in his hands.

I actually haven't finished the book, but it is a really easy read and has a lot of funny pop culture references, as well as fairly legally accurate. The plot is just outrageous, which makes it that much better in my opinion. The idea of it all I think would just make for a great adventure, and would have some great CGI. Would be even better if they got the real Nick Carter to play Nick Carter.

The Andromeda Strain e-book!

I started reading it over the summer, then someone accidentally spilled coffee on it and ruined it. :(

It's such a great book. I love Crichton.

The little things in life that make me happy are cute snapchat/text messages from my friends, nice mugs, tea, and good music. And TinyChat. :-)

Thanks for the contest ♥

So, it was a fun book, but I found more than a few aspects of it to be a bit unbelievable and aggravating.

• All of what follows is something that you will learn about the setting in the opening chapter or two, and while it is background material that is absolutely relevant to the plot, is not itself about any of the characters or events of the book... so I don't think that it is spoiler material. Still, I've enclosed it in spoiler blocks just to be safe.
  
  -----
  
  [Spoiler](/s "The nominal concept of the setting is that everybody alive has a high capacity digital storage device embedded in the base of their skull/neck that keeps track of everything they do/say/learn/experience. As such humans are basically software... you can put any consciousness in any body. Bodies can be grown, or confiscated, or traded. Any event that kills a person but doesn't destroy the storage device doesn't kill the person permanently... he/she just downloads into a new body... possibly one that was a clone of the old body, or possibly an upgrade or downgrade depending upon finances. In fact, there is no need to even go back into a body as one can run one's consciousness entirely inside a virtual environment... and at a much faster rate than a human brain would support. This is not a concept in the background... the story revolves around this idea. ")
  
  [Spoiler](/s "If you find that to be a believable idea, then you'll love the book. I don't. I think that too much of how we think is intrinsic to the mechanism of how our brains work. You couldn't put a genius mind into the body of mentally disabled person... you'd end up with a mentally disabled person with vague memories of being a genius. Personally, I don't think it could work even in less extreme cases than that: I strongly suspect that information and meaning as it is experienced in a human is encoded symbolically into neurons in a way that is utterly different and incompatible with the way similar or even identical information is encoded into the neurons of any other human... that is the way any individual thinks is essentially encrypted relative to the way any other individual thinks... and that this is a property that is physically encoded in the shape and genetics of individual neurons in the brain such that it could never be separated from the brain. (This is consistent with what we know about how brains work from fMRI studies... when you look at a picture, or do a task such as multiplication, the same general regions of the brain light up for you as anyone else, but the pattern of activation isn't exactly the same... ever). ")
  
  [Spoiler](/s "But lets say we choose to ignore the fact that the premise is more than a little incompatible with what we know of neurobiology. The premise is also self contradictory in ways that are annoyingly implausible but convenient for the plot. Without getting into spoilers, Altered Carbon takes place in a society that has the ability to copy and digitize the consciousness of a human, create functional independent AIs, run simulations of humans so realistic that the simulations don't know that they are simulations or that the environment that they are in is simulated, move such software-human-identities between bodies, and yet still treats human consciousness as a black box! You want to extract a particular fact from a stored mind? You have to actually boot that mind up into a body or software simulated environment, and ASK IT with language! I mean, if the author wants to explore the consequences of human identity as software that's great, but GO ALL THE WAY! Extracting information from a stored consciousness, given all the other things this civilization can do, should be child's play... as simple as typing in search terms in a search engine... the fact that the consciousness is not running should only make it easier. ")
  
  [Spoiler](/s "All in all, a fun light reading, but not as intriguing as it could have been. In many ways, Kiln People by Brin explored much the same subject matter, and did so in a more intellectually rigorous manner. Oddly, the fact that the mind-copying technology is much less believable in Brin's book (and analogue rather than digital in nature) makes the over all story much more believable because it lets the story focus more upon the metaphysical, social, and moral implications.")

Rendezvous with Rama the whole series is pretty good.

2001: A Space Odyssey (Arthur C. Clarke Collection: The Odyssey) that series as well

Neuromancer

Homeland: The Legend of Drizzt, Book I: Bk. 1
the dark elf trilogy is pretty good

for amazingly deep and rich backdrop you can't beat the Dune (40th Anniversary Edition) (Dune Chronicles, Book 1) at least the first three.. others that were wrote by his son and other authors are ok but dont live up to the originals imho

pretty much all of Robert Heinlein's stuff stranger in a strange land, starship troopers (nothing at all like the movie), Glory Road, Have Spacesuit will travel.

>> Real men jog home from their vasectomies! (I took a bus.)

> I've read this from you about 10 times now and I still giggle.

I do tend to repeat myself. Sorry about that. I'm glad you're still enjoying that one.

> Really? I looked this up and I got spouses. Are you sure?

Mouse -> mice. Spouse -> spice.

I am sure it's a joke. And, it's not original on my part. It's from Heinlein.

> Btw, there is a (suspected) finch family nesting in my mom's clothespin bag. When I saw them I thought of you. Noisy little things. Chirping their fool heads off, hopping around the deck, flying all over the place. They are entertaining. I don't know if there are babies yet, but I've seen the adults bringing bugs into the clothespin bag. No tweeting yet, though.

Cool! I hope you get to see the chicks. With birds that small, they grow up fast. You're most likely to see them when they're about the same size as the adults but more drab and fluttering their wings, chirping, and begging for food. Watch for a bit and you'll see the parents feeding them.

If you get to see them younger and featherless in the nest, that's really lucky. I usually don't.

> If I get a pic I'll send it to you.

Cool. Then maybe I can identify them for you.

P.S. The full quote, though I'd like more context but not enough to dig out the book, is:

> Among such people the plural of spouse is spice.

> --Lazurus Long, Time Enough For Love, pg 339

• Demon Trap by P.S. Power I also re-read the previous books in the series in preparation. Another good sequel in the series.
  
  
  
• Bill The Vampire by Rick Gualtieri as well as the sequels (4 books total i believe) It's a pretty good series, new take on urban fantasy / vampires. The main character got a little stale towards the end... its somewhat sitcommy
  
  
  
• The War of Stardeon by Cooley, Trevor H. Four book in the series just came out, so i nabbed it... its an easy read, nothing ground breaking but very entertaining. Main char is a bit marry sue (but a guy)
  
  
• The Cor Chronicles by Martin Parece I read all three books that are currently out. Its a good read, fairly epic. Interesting take on gods, very much about gods interacting with the world and warring. boy grows up to find out he turns into a rare race that was created by a lesser known blood god, has to fight persecution.
  
  
• Forging Zero by King, Sara as well as the sequel Zero Recall This is actually a sci fi book, the first once I've read in a LOONG time, its basically an alien invasion, but instead of the normal story the aliens conscript children to sue as solders, pretty neat take on things, because of these two books im going to look into more sci-fy.
  
  
• Mageborn: The God-Stone War fourth book recently came out, so i re-read the first three, then read the new one. Its good stuff, big cliff hanger though... cant wait till the next book.
  
  Now i just realized i read 18 books this month... what the hell.

It's pretty light reading, but if you like the idea of an Indiana Jones style adventure in space (but with a bit more science), I would check out 'Seeker' by Jack McDevitt.

It's a pretty fun and engaging read.

Lnk: http://www.amazon.com/Seeker-Jack-McDevitt/dp/0441013759/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1291709470&sr=8-1

It was brutal. I wasn't that good. But there were many people who were superb. It was such a pleasure watching them perform.

Here are some sci-fi recommendations (you may have read them already, but I thought I'd offer anyway):

Serious Scifi:

Anathem the "multiverse" (multiple realities) and how all that works
Seveneves feminism meets eugenics—watch out!
The Culture series by Iain Banks, esp Book 2, the Player of Games Banks is dead, but wrote some of the best intellectual scifi ever

Brilliant, Visionary:

Accelerando brilliant and hilarious; and it's not a long book
Snowcrash classic
Neuromancer another classic

Tawdry yet Lyrical (in a good way):

Dhalgren beautiful, poetic, urban, stream of consciousness, and more sex than you can believe

Underrated Classics:

Voyage to Arcturus ignore the reviews and the bad cover of this edition (or buy a diff edition); this is the ONE book that every true scifi and fantasy fan should read before they die

Stress Pattern, by Neal Barrett, Jr. I can't find this on Amazon, but it is a book you should track down. It is possibly the WORST science fiction book ever written, and that is why you must read it. It's a half-assed attempt at a ripoff of Dune without any of the elegance or vision that Herbert had, about a giant worm that eats people on some distant planet. A random sample: "A few days later when I went to the edge of the grove to ride the Bhano I found him dead. I asked Rhamik what could have happened and he told me that life begins, Andrew, and life ends. Well, so it does."

FRACTAL: A Time Travel Tale

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PXZJNH2

FREE until April 21st

> What could be more right than correcting a wrong? That's the decision that Hector Herrera finds himself having to make circa 2015 when he taps into the ability to skip through time via his dreams.

> When you feel as if the world is changing around you, with or without your input, people like Hector are the architects of that change. Do they have your best interest at heart? That's a matter of perspective and up to each and every one of us to decide. But ask yourself this: If you had the opportunity to toggle through time and righteously fight the injustices of the past, do you think you would rise to that challenge?

---

The 14-day DASH Diet Meal Plan: Healthy Low-Sodium Recipes for Lower Blood Pressure and Weight Loss

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QDG54ML

FREE until April 21st

> If you are overweight with high blood pressure, your doctor may have ordered a low sodium diet with less saturated fat.

> Didn’t sound like fun, did it? However, you don’t have to lose the great taste of food when you cut the fat and salt. The DASH diet for weight loss lets you follow your doctor’s orders while still pleasing your palate, with no need to give up smoothies, muffins, or pizza, while you lower blood pressure, drop pounds, and reduce the risk of several diseases.

> The 14-Day DASH Diet Meal Plan: Healthy Low-Sodium Recipes for Lower Blood Pressure and Weight Loss will make this change in eating painless for your wallet, as well as your taste buds, by focusing on kitchen staples.

StarRisk is good fun as long as you arn't looking for deep hidden meanings in your writing, because other than a few story twists it's fairly straightforward. That doesn't make it any less entertaining thou.

The Evergence series is a considerably more sophisticated read and you'll likely get some good milage out of the story on that one. Everything from ascended beings to cyborgs and super soldiers.

The two I was trying to remember are

Seeker: It's an exploration and discovery novel, so not particularly military in approach but interesting.

The Faded Sun Trilogy: This one is a retired military character that ends up in a fish out of water situation. It's admittedly very long and was a tougher read than I had anticipated when I picked it up but I enjoyed it even if I felt a bit burnt out at the end because there's so much going on and the pacing isn't that great since it's actually 3 books in one cover.

If you want to get absolutely insane milage out of a book series try the Otherland series. It's not a space opera but it's a heavy duty sci-fi regardless. For hard space sci-fi the Culture series is also really incredible and should probably be at the top of this list not the bottom.

Fiction Books

Cryptonomicon - Very few books make up a cypher system based on playing cards, have a story that spans WW2 through the present day and in large part revolve around creating an alternate digital currency, a data haven and startup life.

Neuromancer - this is the book that created cyberpunk and that inspired all those bad movie ideas about hacking in 3D systems. That being said, it marked a real turning point in SciFi. Without this book "cyber" security specialists would probably be called something else.

Snow Crash - This is much more breezy than the other two but still has very recognizable hacking/security elements to it and is just fun.

Non Fiction

Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman - This isn't a book about technology so much as deduction and figuring things out (while being hilariously entertaining).

I included all these here in large part because they are what inspired me to get into development and sysadmin work and I bet that I'm about 20 years older than you if you're just getting into the field - so there's a decent chance that your coworkers are into them too.

Do you read cyberpunk? Looking at art is great but I find reading to be the biggest inspiration because how I imagine the world is unique and original to me. Likewise, how you imagin the world will be unique and original too and completely different from how I see it. Check out books like Neuromancer, the book that started cyberpunk.

[edit] One of my favorite quotes from the book

> His eyes were eggs of unstable crystal, vibrating with a frequency whose name was rain and the sound of trains, suddenly sprouting a humming forest of hair-fine glass spines.

Paints a different kind of picture than you can get from images.

I'm no expert on sci-fi, but 'Year Zero' was pretty good. It felt like an american angle on a hitchhiker type story. It's more funny than profound, at least when compared to hitchhikers. Most of it takes place on Earth, and the alien world has to be kept from being viewed by humans because it's beauty would overwhelm and possibly kill them. So it's hardly described at all.

The audiobook is read by John Hodgman, and he does a great job with all the voices. I had no idea he did voices.

I have a four book series about the emergence of artificial intelligence that Wired called "chilling and compelling." It starts with Avogadro Corp: http://www.amazon.com/Avogadro-Corp-Singularity-Closer-Appears-ebook/dp/B006ACIMQQ/

The series spans forty years, and is ideal for people interested in the singularity, the progress of technology and its impact on people and civilization, and is especially well liked by software developers and others in tech, since the protagonists of most of the novels are programmers.

I recommend the Posthuman series.

http://www.amazon.com/Post-Human-Series-Books-David-Simpson-ebook/dp/B00H0D5NTI

Very good AI themes. I do admit it gets pretty deep scifi pretty quickly, I think he takes it a little too far to be honest. That said, read all 4 books, they're short and the 4th one redeems that 3rd one.

Player of Games is a good book, and it's early enough in the Culture series that Banks hadn't yet realized he made the Minds too powerful and doesn't need the human characters to actually do anything. But it is not military science fiction and I don't think it's similar to The Forever War.

If you're looking for more military sci-fi I can recommend Forging Zero, All You Need is Kill, David Weber's Honor Harrington series, Orphanage...and many more I'm sure. Armor is great and I'm sure you've heard of Starship Troopers.

A note on David Weber, I find his overuse of italics a constant irritation when reading his books. It really helps to get digital copies and run them through calibre to eliminate all the italics first.

Dr. Max Tegmark, cosmologist and physics professor at MIT

• Permutation City, by Greg Egan (Powells) (Amazon)
  
  Dr. Jane Goodall, Primatologist
  
  
• The Story of Doctor Dolittle, by Hugh Lofting (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• The Miracle of Life (not listed)
  
  Dr. Sean Carroll, Theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology
  
  
• Dragon's Egg, by Robert Forward (Powells) (Amazon)
  
  Dr. Temple Grandin, Animal scientist
  
  
• "I’m a Star trek fan..."
  
  Dr. Seth Shostak, Senior astronomer and director at the Center for SETI Research
  
  
• Golem XIV, by Stanislaw Lem (Powells) (Amazon)
  
  Dr. Chris Stringer, Anthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London
  
  
• Brazil, the movie (YouTube)
  
  Dr. Jack Horner, Paleontologist at Montana State University
  
  
• Jurassic Park, the movie) (IMDB)
  
  Dr. Adam Riess, astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University
  
  
• Contact, by Carl Sagan (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• The Fountains of Paradise, by Arthur C. Clarke (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• Foundation series, by Isaac Asimov (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• The Silo saga, by Hugh Howey (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• The Stand, by Stephen King (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• Watership Down, by Richard Adams (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• The Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham (Powells) (Amazon)
  
  Dr. Steven Strogatz, professor of mathematics at Cornell University
  
  
• The Andromeda Strain, by Michael Chriton (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• Colossus: The Forbin Project, the movie (IMDB)
  
• 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke (Powells) (Amazon)
  
  Dr. Ainissa Ramirez, materials scientist
  
  
• Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler (Powells) (Amazon)
  
  Dr. Mario Livio, astrophysicist at the Space Telescope Science Institute
  
  
• Around the World in Eighty Days, by Jules Verne (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• Journey to the Center of the Earth, by Jules Verne (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, by Jules Verne (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• 2001: A Space Odyssey, the movie (IMDB)
  
• Dr. Strangelove, the movie (IMDB)
  
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the movie (IMDB)
  
  Olympia LePoint, rocket scientist
  
  
• Gravity, 2013 (IMDB)
  
• Back to The Future, 1985 (IMDB)
  
  Dr. Danielle Lee, biologist
  
  
• Dune, 1984 (IMDB)
  
  Dr. Michael Shermer, historian of science
  
  
• The Day the Earth Stood Still, 1951 (IMDB)
  
  Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist
  
  
• The Day the Earth Stood Still, 1951 (IMDB)
  
• 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968 (IMDB)
  
• Planet of the Apes, 1968 (IMDB)
  
• The Terminator, 1984 (IMDB)
  
• The Quiet Earth, 1985 (IMDB)
  
• Contact, 1997 (IMDB)
  
• Deep Impact, 1998 (IMDB)
  
• The Matrix, 1999 (IMDB)
  
• The Island, 2005 (IMDB)
  
• Watchmen, 2009 (IMDB)
  

I have several good recommendations for this one. First I will give you two fiction books you MUST read if this subject is a real interest of yours.

Islands In The Net by: Bruce Sterling
https://www.amazon.com/Islands-Net-Bruce-Sterling-ebook/dp/B00PDDKVXK/

Neuromancer by William Gibson
https://www.amazon.com/Neuromancer-William-Gibson/dp/0441569595

For non-fiction the one book that really did it for me was again by Mr. Sterling it's called The Hacker Crackdown and it is so amazing!!
https://www.amazon.com/Hacker-Crackdown-Disorder-Electronic-Frontier/dp/055356370X

Good luck. PM for more recommendations if you need them. This is a genre I am very interested in myself and have read extensively.

I think both are great, but the audio drama is probably slightly better. The movie falls apart towards the end, mostly because they felt a need to include some onscreen action, while the radioplay's ending has a better conceptual continuity to the plot.

The original book both are based on is hella cool and weird, too, although the movie only adapts the first of several linked narratives from it. As far as I know, though, the field of true literary fiction about zombies at this point comprises just Pontypool Changes Everything and Colson Whitehead's zombie book.

Interesting, I'm reading Cory Doctorow's latest novel, which comes from a (very) roughly similar moral perspective as well. It's pretty weird. Although in the fictional universe (medium-term future) cheap 3D printing supposedly makes possible the post-scarcity conditions necessarily for "decommodifying labor and offering every human the resources to flourish". But so far the book reads a lot like a communist Atlas Shrugged, up to and including the long-winded philosophical monologues. Maybe it will get better though; the story itself has some interesting sci-fi elements, so I haven't given up yet.

I really enjoyed these books and have read a lot of similar self published works. A series that is very similar is B.V. Larson's Star Force series.
http://www.amazon.com/Swarm-Star-Force-Series-ebook/dp/B004H8FVEQ/ref=pd_sim_kstore_1

I am a glutton for any type of military scifi and will read through a lot of the self published authors, and some of these authors sell a surprising amount of books. Thomas Deprima is one of these authors as eggrock has pointed out, his series is one of the better selling ones. Although its not selling like it did about a year ago. I do disagree with him on his beliefs that he wrote all his good reviews. There are a lot of people who like his style of writing.

Going back to whether I've read any of his other works, I have not. Although I have debated buying Accelerated, Strontium 90, and Invasion Alaska on a few occasions. I've just never worked up the desire to read them. So I guess we're in the same boat. You can always go to his amazon page and read the reviews.

Love this series highly recommend it up until the third book but the fourth book... His other series on silver wings fits the bill as well though.

A few other great reads though that are fairly similar listed in the order of my preference.

• A sword into darkness by Thomas A.mays
  
• swarm by B.v Larson
  
• exodus: empires at war by doug Dandridge.
  
• The nameless War by edmond Barrett
  
  
  Also sorry about high jacking this started writing this as a response then ended up recommending a bunch of other books .

I doubt this is it, but I'll plug Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein.

http://www.amazon.com/Time-Enough-Love-Robert-Heinlein/dp/0441810764/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371002335&sr=8-1&keywords=time+enough+for+love

Hopefully it might help you or someone else get pointed in the right direction.

Yeah, Im fully into ebooks, but the cost really is BS. I think there is some drama between publishers and amazon that always inflates the prices. Some self published authors have really cheap Ebooks (I loved this book and its sequels and they're only $3-$5 each). So there is a chance the prices may go down at some point if something changes between amazon and publishers.

I actually got into Ebooks while pirating them, so cost wasn't an issue, after awhile i got so used to the convenience of having it on my phone I couldn't go back to print. Then i had a little more spending money and decided buying them was even more convenient.

I'm reading Time Enough For Love by Robert Heinlein right now. It takes place in the year 4272 in an interplanetary human civilization with "the Senior", who's been alive since the 1940's (and who's genes aided research into 'rejuvenation clinics' for the wealthy and connected), giving his life stories and wisdom to the leader of a planet who wants to leave and colonize a new world. It's a fascinating read, and gets into some decent scientific detail too. Heinlein also wrote Stranger in a Strange Land and Starship Troopers.

I just finished reading the first book in The Singularity series. Not the greatest book ever, but it's something you might not have heard of which is definitely worthy of attention. It has the added benefit of being fairly short and fast paced.

Sounds like you might enjoy Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. I think Snow Crash is meant to be in the same universe - it's hilarious but not as dense. You might also like his Cryptonomicon, though it's not technically Sci Fi.

Tad Willams' Otherland Series is Epic Sci Fi with a huge amount of detail. Might be right up your alley.

Dune, Neuromancer and The Enderverse if you haven't already read those.

This article gives a pretty good overview of the form: https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/penny-dreadfuls

The article will give you a few titles to search for, but the originals sell for a lot of money because they are collectible. I'm guessing you can find some reproductions online if you look hard enough, but there is also this Barnes & Noble collection that looks very nice: https://www.amazon.com/Penny-Dreadfuls-Sensational-Leatherbound-Collection/dp/1435162765/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1498318847&sr=1-1&keywords=penny+dreadfuls

Don't know why someone downvoted you...

Kiln People is a fantastic book. Great sci-fi with an interesting premise.

David Brin wrote a great novel that explores this somewhat called Kiln People. It's a fun and pretty easy read, and directly deals with those questions! It's a murder mystery involving temporary human avatars made from a kind of recyclable slurry that people upload consciousness to.

just finished the bitterbynde trilogy, lovely high fantasy novel based on the folklore of the british isles.

currently in the middle of cory doctorow's new novel, walkaway, which is shaping up nicely

For sheer 'play in the virtual world' stuff, you MUST read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. You'll blaze through that, so follow it up with Stephenson's The Diamond Age


Good YA dystopic future stuff:
The Windup Girl

Station Eleven


Finally, get into Neuromancer, by William Gibson. It's a fantastic--some would say genre-defining--cyberpunk novel.

Then go devour everything Stephenson and Gibson put out there. That should get you through at least the first half of the summer. Happy reading!

https://www.amazon.com/Neuromancer-William-Gibson/dp/0441569595

 

Check out r/cyberpunk

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_Carbon_(TV_series)

 

Neuromancer is coined as the novel that started it all in terms of what is known as cyberpunk today. Altered Carbon is a new show on netflix coming tomorrow and Blade Runner as far as I am concerned is the best sci fi movie ever made. r/cyberpunk is a good place to start your journey but feel free to message me and talk about cyberpunk stuff anytime you want.

Hey Sean,
I have it on good authority that the Writer of FRACTAL is down to do Hot Ones. Will you have him on as a solid to me?
Thanks in advance,
Tony Ortiz :)

https://www.amazon.com/FRACTAL-Time-Travel-Tony-Ortiz-ebook/dp/B07PXZJNH2/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=fractal+a+time+travel+tale&qid=1554068990&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull

Good fiction excites the mind and teaches new concepts. Most future minded scientists are science fiction fans for that reason.

Snow Crash is just a fun ride. Pulp fiction, not more complex or involved than that. Enders Game is the same.

Try the fanfiction I recommended, or Understand (pdf) by Ted Chiang, or The Last Question by Asimov, or Baby Eating Aliens by Yudkowsky. All of these are free, by the way, and relatively short.

Each have important lessons embedded in good stories, philosphical quandries that we are rapidly approaching, like what will it mean to be human when we are no longer entirely biological?

Also, if you want just a reeeeeaallly good scifi book, I don't think you can go past Neuromancer by Gibson. Less thought provoking but seriously well written.

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.co.uk

amazon.com.au

amazon.in

amazon.com.mx

amazon.de

amazon.it

amazon.es

amazon.com.br

amazon.nl

amazon.co.jp

amazon.fr

Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
I currently look here: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ca, amazon.com.au, amazon.in, amazon.com.mx, amazon.de, amazon.it, amazon.es, amazon.com.br, amazon.nl, amazon.co.jp, amazon.fr, if you would like your local version of Amazon adding please contact my creator.

I agree with the other posts regarding going with the most natural feeling verb tense and not forcing present.

If you want to read a pretty decent example of a first-person-present that doesn't feel clunky but actually pulls you into the action, try reading Grimspace by Ann Aguirre She writes all six books with first-person-present and I enjoyed them (they're not Dickens or Shakespeare, but they're enjoyable).

ebook. Happy happy birthdaaaaay!!

it's the weekend

That was so much fun!

And by the way. You are looking STUNNING today. Like, I can't look away! So... so... beautiful...

(also, I think I would like this from my wishlist)

Avogadro goes into great detail on A.I. designed to do exactly what OP said happened. It's sci-fi and amazing.

This is the best book I have read about humans being taken by an alien empire. This focuses on one group of people, and mostly one man, but it is an amazing work. Forging Zero - http://amzn.com/B00BTKA42Y

Sure!

Cryptonomicon

Snow Crash

The Electric Church

Neuromancer

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

That should get you started. :)

http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-TM-Daemon-Book-2-ebook/dp/B002VUFKDY

as well as the original Daemon (http://www.amazon.com/Daemon-Daniel-Suarez-ebook/dp/B003QP4NPE/) Both are great reads.

You might like this. It's somewhere in the middle between soft and hard sci-fi in my relative opinion, but I found it a good read.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Post-Human-Omnibus-1-4-David-Simpson-ebook/dp/B00H0D5NTI - books 1-4

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inhuman-Book-Post-Human-David-Simpson-ebook/dp/B00HYLX4R4 - book 5

These are all great books too

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Forever-War-3-Book/dp/B00W6RJ6SC - Joe Haldeman's Forever War

https://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Sins-Remembered-GOLLANCZ-S-F-ebook/dp/B005HRTA4I Joe Haldeman's All My Sins Remembered

Granted not exactly to your spec, as it's 1980's sci-fi and thus based around now, HOWEVER very good story.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00J3EU5RC - Greg Bear's Eon books

Haha, I actually read a great book that was self published! CyberStorm http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BT4QRHG

There's a series of books that I found on kindle that's literally called Post Human.

Book one is good.

A plot point from book two onward is kind of odd. [Spoiler](/s "Divorce seems to be not a thing? and everyone's medical status is always being broadcast to their spouse so if you see someone attractive who is not your spouse then they instantly know. And since everyone is effectively immortal this comes up a lot, which is why divorce not being an option seems kind of stupid." )

Anyway, it's a minor plot point and just really odd which is why I mentioned it.

As to the tech, it's maybe magic? I'm not sure but it's definitely on the softer side of sci-fi.

Still worth a read if you have kindle unlimited.

I really enjoyed Avogadro Corp (first in a series). It's a compelling and plausible story about an emergent AI, and it takes place in the not-too-distant future.

(disclaimer: I know the author, but I met him after reading the book, and I enjoyed the book before I knew him)

I read Seeker which is part of the Alex Benedict Series in Spring 2011. Changed my life forever.
Read it apart of a science fiction English class and despite that I read it out of order from the series, it was fantastic.
The vision of the future portrayed in this novel is what I'd like our future to be.

• so this is the best utopia of their books?
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Cory-Doctorow/e/B001I9RSKC
  
  
  '17
  
  
  
  800 3.75 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40604388-walkaway
  
  
  200 3.8 https://www.amazon.com/Walkaway-Novel-Cory-Doctorow-ebook/dp/B01FQQ47OC
  
  
  > set in early days of a better world. /u/finfinfin /u/Ungreat

My friend suggested this to me! Looks exciting!

Thanks for the contest!

OMG I need to choose just one?? Blergh.

uhm - this one - and used would be totally more than okay if I happened to win.

An episode set in the backdrop of a NYC Blackout would be really cool. Like a parody of the real NYC blackout of 1977. Maybe it's the dark army's real motive for working with Elliot on "Stage 2". Elliot even says something in beginning of s2e9 like "we never questioned the dark army's motives"). It is totally plausible, even likely, that the Dark Army is sponsored by the State (China), maybe they want to have the first strike in a true Cyber War with the US. First they break down society by aiding the crash of the financial system and encouraging dissent. Next cut the power, civilization starts to unfold, next bring the telecom systems down, invade, WWIII! Ok I'll put my tin foil hat back on.

edit - this is also a part of the plot of a book I read recently called Cyber Storm

If you haven't read it yet try out

http://www.amazon.com/CyberStorm-English-Edition-Matthew-Mather-ebook/dp/B00BT4QRHG/

By the same author. I haven't read Darknet yet but CyberStorm was great.

Split Second

Technically it's time travel but it's used more as duplication - it's all explained in the book - great read.

For what it's worth, as I was setting up my son's Kindle app I ran across a series of books I read a while ago that is good for his age that I thought I'd share with anyone else interested: The Legend of Zero series. It's about a kid (somewhere 9-12, I believe) is abducted by alien invaders and conscripted into their multi-species army. Not dystopian, obviously, but good sci-fi.

Other works of fiction that contain the concept of a metaverse;

Books

• The Otherland series, by Tad Williams, beginning with City of Golden Shadow (sidenote, this series also has an MMORPG based on it, currently in closed beta, and recently (October of last year) brought back from the dead)
  
  
• The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons, beginning with Hyperion.
  
  
• The Golden Oecumene, by John C. Wright, beginning with The Golden Age.
  
  
• Accel World, by Reki Kawahara, beginning with Kuroyukihime's Return. (If you are familiar with the manganime Sword Art Online, this is by the same author, and shares the same universe)
  
  
• This Alien Shore, by Celia S. Friedman. (amazon link)
  
  
• The Sprawl Trilogy, by William Gibson, beginning with Neuromancer.
  
  
• Accelerando, by Charles Stross. (free e-book link)
  
  Anime and Manga
  
  
• The .hack series, specifically .hack//SIGN
  
  
• For a lighter feel, there's Summer Wars (available on CrunchyRoll) and the INCREDIBLY similar second Digimon movie, Our War Game!. Also I guess by extension, but not really explored as much, the entire Digimon series, as it takes place in an analogy for the internet.
  
  
• Serial Experiments Lain
  
  
• Okay fine, here's Sword Art Online (CrunchyRoll link)
  
  Film
  
  
• The Singularity is Near, a speculative documentary based on the Ray Kurzweil book of the same name.
  
  
• The Thirteenth Floor, a crime thriller about the owner of a VR simulation company getting murdered.
  
  ----
  
  I know I haven't even begun to scratch the surface of the genre, because if there's one thing humans are good at, it's writing fucktons on what we like.
  
  So feel free to comment additions to this list, or opinions on what I've currently included. I have by no means read/watched all of these, so having someone with actual experience with each of these weigh in would be nice.

General

Neuromancer By William Gibson

Neuromancer spawned the Cyberpunk genre and is responsible for much of cyber culture today, despite being written before the internet entered the public consciousness. Interesting characters, poetic descriptions, and a drug-addled noir atmosphere.


>Goodreads blurb: The Matrix is a world within the world, a global consensus- hallucination, the representation of every byte of data in cyberspace . . .

>Case had been the sharpest data-thief in the business, until vengeful former employers crippled his nervous system. But now a new and very mysterious employer recruits him for a last-chance run. The target: an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence orbiting Earth in service of the sinister Tessier-Ashpool business clan. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case embarks on an adventure that ups the ante on an entire genre of fiction.

>Hotwired to the leading edges of art and technology, Neuromancer ranks with 1984 and Brave New World as one of the century's most potent visions of the future. (less)

I've enjoyed both of those authors, so I guess I'll recommend some books I've liked.

In no particular order (links to the first book in the series, on amazon):

The Lost Fleet by Jack Campbell

Spinward Fringe by Randolph Lalonde

Star Force by B.V. Larson

Honor Harrington series by David Weber

Valor series by Tanya Huff

I choose Neuromancer.

I have never read it but I have been told I need to. Also, Neuromancer is the first novel to win the Sci-Fi triple crown (Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick award). It came out in 1984 and coined the term "cyberspace" for online computer networks. Other terms such as ICE (Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics) were also coined or given significance through this novel. Also the term "Matrix" when referring to a computer network was used here (Suck on that Matrix trilogy).

The function of money itself is a variable.

What is money? I've heard it as "An agreement within a community to establish a system for the distribution of resources."

Everything about how it works: inflation, interest, scale, who issues it. . . is all arbitrary.

Markets, as they currently function, are set up to drive unsustainable recurring growth. . . and they've shaped global human behavior toward a kind of destructiveness, greed and unchecked ambition that is SINGLE HANDEDLY the source of, I will go so far as to say "most" of the human suffering in the world. But those that benefit from them the most are almost Pavlovianly conditioned to have a hard time seeing this. This is a big problem.

If YOU would like to open your eyes, here's some resources:

Barnard Lietaer was a world class economist (who was one of the architects of the Euro. . .which he warned was going to cause and run into a lot of the same problems as it has, but it had POLITICAL requirements that HAD to be met that had those problems baked in) who focused his work on helping communities reimagine the idea of what currency even is. When you realize it doesn't have to work the way it does, the whole way that markets even work starts to look. . . well downright evil and unnecessary. . . sorry Libertarians.

This book and it's sequel are interesting techno-thriller sci-fi. But the second book imagines a system by which a market economy could be managed by democratized opensource AI to produce MUCH better social outcomes. This kind of a system is MUCH more in reach than people reflexively think. It also takes a look at how one MIGHT use gamification to help people rethink their preconceived notions of how economies MUST work.

And also. . .this is dope!

Oh man. I've been waiting for a thread like this to pop up. I loved Neuromancer to no end, along with House of Leaves. Containment was good shit too, very interesting read, but relies on easy plot fixes. It doesn't ruin the story, in my opinion.

You also can't go wrong with anything by Kurt Vonnegut and Phillip K. Dick.

Point of note: I hadn't met/encountered Cory when I wrote "Lobsters" (the first story that went into Accelerando) in 1998.

Subsequently Cory and I co-wrote another fix-up novel, The Rapture of the Nerds, which you can take as a comic pratfall sequel to the novel-of-ideas that was Accelerando. You can buy it here if you want to support our work, or download it for free if you just want to sample it.

The post-human series is one of my all time favorite tanshuman series. It's got some good character development, A.I., most may consider it leaning towards fantasy in some aspects. I always just remember the quote "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke.


https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00H0D5NTI/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1488172906&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=post+human+omnibus&dpPl=1&dpID=51nKxcjtmcL&ref=plSrch

I've recently read two books that I absolutely fell in love with:

1.) Stories of Your Life and Others: http://www.amazon.com/Stories-Your-Life-Others-Chiang/dp/1931520720/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413578672&sr=8-1&keywords=stories+of+your+life+and+others

2.) Neuromancer (A classic that I've just gotten into): http://www.amazon.com/Neuromancer-William-Gibson/dp/0441569595/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413578739&sr=8-1&keywords=neuromancer

B.V. Larson is an independent author who has self-published a bunch of eBooks that I really enjoy - check out his Starforce series (starting with Swarm).

Edit - Also, look up the Jon & Lobo series. It's a slight variation on military science fiction about an ex-military mercenary (enhanced by sweet nanobots, not unlike the soldiers in Old Man's War) and his super-smart warship.

Does it have to be well-told? :P

Grimspace series - Ann Aguire

Friday - Robert A. Heinlein

Stardoc - S.L. Viehl

Blade Dancer - S. L. Viehl

Califia's Daughters - Leigh Richards (post-apocalypse)

I wouldn't call it paranoia. The media is totally sensationalizing what he says. But nothing he has said has been wrong. Nukes are insanely dangerous, but a nuke doesn't think.

I think the first nuclear tests were even extremely risky, if I recall correctly, during a documentary I was watching it was said that they weren't exactly sure what would happen... they had a good idea but it was simply an idea. (idea == theory)

Elon Musk wants to dump money into making sure our first AI is developed to be benevolent rather than self serving, I say why not? There's actually a good sci-fi book that touches on this subject: Post-Human (Amazon).

[Post-Human Spoiler](/s "Essentially, China rushes an AI to win the world war but in the process of rushing the AI essentially takes over and begins to attempt to wipe out the planet. The government is finally able to send a suicide team with a tactical nuke to take it out, at which point strong AI is banned. Meanwhile a team secretly works on a strong AI but with the intent of having it be a protector of humanity from both other strong AIs but also from itself and their environment. Long story short, it ends up doing all of that.")

I enjoyed "Time Enough for Love"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_Long

Also:

"Elantris" and "Warbreaker" by Brandon Sanderson

Oh! Also check out "The Mummy or Ramses the Damned" by Anne Rice!

Daemon and it's sequel Freedom by Daniel Suarez would probably be a good recommendation if you like those two books you mentioned in the title.

Great! My address is 126 Albert Street, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, N2L 3T1. The edition I'm sending is http://www.amazon.com/dp/0441569595, and is in like-new condition.

I'm currently reading Year Zero by Rob Reid.

It deals with the fact that, due to how twisted our copyright laws are, and how ridiculous the damages are supposed be when copyright infringement occurs, that the alien civilizations who've been listening in and loving our music are now faced with being copyright pirates to the tune of all possible wealth in the universe.

That seemed pertinent to the subject at hand. Also, the book is pretty funny, in a Douglas Adams kind of way.

Avogadro corp series: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006ACIMQQ

AI isn't omnipotent, but close, and a very good description on how the AI comes to be.

You will love anything by Jack McDevitt. Especially http://www.amazon.com/Seeker-Jack-McDevitt/dp/0441013759

So then we can have what's in the book Freedom: http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-TM-Daniel-Suarez-ebook/dp/B002VUFKDY/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1417827999&sr=8-3&keywords=freedom

Qotd: What kind of clone? Like in Kiln People? if it was like that, I'd say, do my photo editing that I'm behind on, another to do all the flyer hanging I need to get done (and travel for), and a 3rd to tackle my to-do lists. My original self will stay here and pet cats.


​

There’s a great book called Split Second that deals with this and how sending something back in time for even a fraction of a second results in teleportation

I too, like books. I think you'd like The Andromeda Strain. It's by the same author who wrote Jurassic Park.

It's definitely not a perfect movie; I read somewhere that Tony Burgess, the author of the novel on which the film was based as well as the screenplay, kept redrafting the script until finally the director asked for a copy on the first day of shooting. Had shooting started a few days later, the film might've ended up completely differently. My guess is that some of the ideas, especially the "May I see you in the morning" and etc. bits were remnants of some ideas that got lost as the writing of the script progressed.

Speaking of which, if you get a chance, read Pontypool Changes Everything (on which the movie's based) beacuse it's somehow enormously more insane than the movie. Grant Mazzy is a wholly different character in the novel and there's all sorts of weirdness in there...I loved it; it was nuts.

They're light reading and not hard scifi, but the WWW trilogy https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002361NDM/ and Avogadro Corp https://www.amazon.com/Avogadro-Corp-Singularity-Closer-Appears-ebook/dp/B006ACIMQQ are both entertaining and in that niche.

Reminds me of this book I read about time travel. Not like any other movie or show where time travel has already been perfected. It takes place where time travel was just discovered, where they could only go back just a fraction of a second, like 0.0001 milliseconds back. You'd think it was pretty useless.

The thing is it uses the universe as point of origin. So they put you in this time travel chamber, and in relation to the earth's rotation/revolution, going back in time meant you'd be standing like 60 feet away, or where you were standing relative to the universe 0.0001 milliseconds ago. So you slowly begin to understand it's not really a time travel discovery, but more of a duplication technique.

So the military gets a hold of it, they could duplicate multi-billion dollar weapons. Kidnap, clone, have an evac truck like 60 feet away where the VIP used to be in relation to the universe, then interrogate, and kill world leaders (their clone) for secret information. Pretty wild book.

But yeah, this guy's an idiot.

This sounds very similar to the plot on Daniel Suarez's book Kill Decision: Link
Which I HIGHLY recommend.

Along with his other books Daemon and Freedom.

They are AMAZING on audible...

I recommend 2 series by BV Larson:

First Swarm Book 1 of "Star Force"

Second Steel World Book 1 of the "Undying Mercenaries"

Also The Synchronicity War by Dietmar Wehr

Now for a shameless plug for my favorite Sci-fi book: We Are Legion book 1 of "Bobiverse" There is some ship to ship fighting. But its more Sci-fi comedy.

> What if my children or a younger friend will be immortal? In a thousand years they will have forgotten the 40 years they spent with me.

If that's really what you believe, may I suggest reading Robert A. Heinlein's Time Enough for Love. ( Amazon )

Believe it or not there are quite a few good sci-fi books exploring these ideas already. Here is an incomplete list you may want to check out:

• Snow Crash where it's called the 'Metaverse'
  
• Otherland where it's called 'Otherland'
  
• Neuromancer where it's called 'The Matrix' (pre-dates the movie by the same name by more than 10 years, fyi)
  
• Hyperion where it's called the 'data plane'.

You should really read "Split Second" by Doug Richards. It deals with this very subject, in a very very interesting way.

BV Larson's Star Force series is pretty decent.

That was the plot of a book I read. Someone discovered how to time travel. Problem is the time being traveled is very short, 45 microseconds, iirc. What's the usefulness of that? The object being sent back in time 45 microseconds, merely appears in our universe. Since the earth is constantly moving, it appears 58 feet from the original location. The original object being sent back in time remains, so it was actually used as a matter duplication device.

EDIT: The book is Split Second by Douglas E Richards.

This book has a really funny premise.

I first saw it in neuromancer. If you haven't read neuromancer yet... You really should. Also count zero and mona Lisa overdrive; these 3 books form the Sprawl trilogy and were hugely influential in the formation of the cyberpunk genre.

There's a novel out that reflects this issue, just heard about it on NPR.

Basically in the novel humans suck at everything compared to aliens except for our musical abilities and they love our music so much that they sometimes die of happiness when listening to it. According to our copyright laws, the universe owes us more than three times the amount of money that exists in the entire universe so some aliens are out to destroy earth to get out of the debts.

TL;DR book related to this issue, here

I read a book a while back called Avogadro Corp, which is about Google a fictionalized tech company creating a project that inadvertently becomes self-aware. For what it's worth, I think it's very close to what you're looking for.

Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway.

Neuromancer by William Gibson.

Stars in My Pockets Like Grains of Sand by Samuel Delany.

It is this one

Thanks for the help!

My nomination might be quite a difficult read but it is short in comparison and may leave us invigorated.

Neuromancer by William Gibson [SCIFI,NS]

> * The Matrix is a world within the world, a global consensus- hallucination, the representation of every byte of data in cyberspace . . .
Case had been the sharpest data-thief in the business, until vengeful former employees crippled his nervous system. But now a new and very mysterious employer recruits him for a last-chance run. The target: an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence orbiting Earth in service of the sinister Tessier-Ashpool business clan. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, mirror-eyed street-samurai, to watch his back, Case embarks on an adventure that ups the ante on an entire genre of fiction.

Hope you like it.

Have you read Freedom (TM)?

It's a sequel to Daemon, but paints a vision of the world close to yours.

Careful, if they become sentient they could start subtley creating their own sleeper agents. The Book

I'm almost always juggling reading material. At the moment I am reading Neuromancer by William Gibson, and Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. Just finished reading Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet by John G Turner, which I highly recommend.

• Dune by Frank Herbert.
  
  
• Riverworld by Philip Jose Farmer - somewhat of a longshot, but something made me think of it.
  
  
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.
  
  
• Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.
  
  
• Battle Royale by Koushun Takami.
  
  
• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.
  
  
• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand .
  
  
• Neuromancer by William Gibson.
  
  
• The Running Man by Stephen King.
  
  You might even get a kick out of The Hunger Games or Divergent... And of course 1984 :)

• William Gibson's Neuromancer and related.
  
  
• Richard Morgan's Altered Carbon and sequels. Also Thirteen.
  
• China Mievlle's The Scar. I can't vouch for his other books - reading in publication order would be to start with Perdito Street Station instead, but I haven't read it myself, yet.
  
• Warren Hammond's Kop and sequels - I feel like this series has been a bit neglected by this subreddit, and I don't know why I rarely see it mentioned here. IMO this series is better than Morgan's sequels to Altered Carbon.

The Post Human Series by David Simpson might fit the bill https://www.amazon.com/Post-Human-Omnibus-1-4-David-Simpson-ebook/dp/B00H0D5NTI

I'm going to chip in Stephenson's Snow Crash should be on the list, as well as Gibson's Neuromancer.

The original is called Neuromancer btw, if anyone is looking for it.

https://www.amazon.com/Neuromancer-William-Gibson/dp/0441569595

Related sci-fi novel Avogadro Corp.

The premise is "What if Google invents the world's first AI, and it's a paperclip maximizer of language?"

OK I tried to do a spoiler alert with formatting but I am not with it enough to do so at this hour.

So - try out Kiln People for size.

www.amazon.com/Kiln-People-Books-David-Brin/dp/0765342618/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=kiln+people&qid=1572919327&s=books&sr=1-1

• edit - sorry for all the edits.

I'm certain this is the Post Human series - https://www.amazon.com/Post-Human-Omnibus-1-4-Book-ebook/dp/B00H0D5NTI

No. The Lazarus Long story was great, but consider the downside.

If you are looking for totally new authors, try Sara King and her Legend of Zero series. Two books out now, more to follow.

Starts with [Forging Zero] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BTKA42Y/)

Military scifi, yes, but with lots of character focus.

I felt Billy Burke was billy burke, he's always the same character, be he 'revolutionary' on revolution or serial killer extraordinary on The Closer / Major Crimes. It's always the same.

The girl who was the lead was weak, her brother was worse. The woman from Lost never impressed me. Actually my favorite actor/character on the movie was the guy who went 'rogue' and was the partner of billy burke.

TV shows end on cliff hangers because they expect to be renewed. Unless they know in advance it's the last season expect a cliff hanger or at least 'unpleasant' ending.

See "we learn from our parents" that's a purely human thing - that's not how AI would learn per se - they would learn from data, their evolution would be quick but it would also be very not human.

I got the authors name wrong (my fault) - it's William Hertling - the Singularity Series first book here is a more interesting take on how AI would evolve.

You don't 'understand' human emotion - you have it or you don't - you can fake it - but you can't really have it - at best you have a three laws situation - because if you don't - you're going to get ai with sociopathic like tendencies.

You are born with emotion, you come out crying, you learn emotion through life events that AI would never experience, human beings can barely program a learning process, you then expect them to work emotions and morals into it? It's not likely, not in real life, to program human emotion you have to understand not only what it is but where it comes from and how it evolves, and humanity is nowhere close to that...the speed with which AI is evolving is PURELY learning- nothing else - the only 'emotion' these AIs will have is if they choose to.

Now that I think about it, the hertling series and the sawyer series about AIs are interesting with two similar 'endings' (in the gross outcome of what happens to humanity but for entirely different reasons) but very disparate AIs.

FYI, there is a semi-sequel that just came out a few days ago: http://www.amazon.com/The-Rapture-Nerds-singularity-posthumanity/dp/0765329107 It was a joint effort between Stross and Cory Doctorow (who bears a strange resemblance to Macx)

It made me think of the sustainability of the global food industry, especially here in the USA. I recently re-read the book Freedom™ by Daniel Suarez, and it raised some interesting concepts about so-called thousand mile supply chains. Excellent read.

EDIT: You're right - she does look PISSED. Plus the German stack of food seems to be way more orderly than anyone else's.

I suggest you read Cyberstorm. I devoured it during a snowstorm last winter and wallowed in delicious panic with every page.

Heinlein's Time Enough for Love is like this. Lazarus Long starts out in full depression and even has a [Spoiler:](#s "button he is told will kill him but really just erases his memories for the past few hours") and uses it, several times. He abducted, OD's on drugs, gets shot, gets sent to the wrong [Spoiler:](#s "time by several years and his child self is an asshole to him"). He has to deal with several deaths including the deaths of people he loves.

It is Scifi and it is heinlein so it can be weird, he also did A Stranger in Strange Land and Starship Troopers. The main character is functionally immortal and has lost the will to live, and there is a bunch of non-conventional sex. If you can get past or enjoy ;) that then you will likely enjoy Time Enough for Love.

Here's the link

7 bucks.

So far as you know.

Neuromancer https://www.amazon.com/dp/0441569595/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_bQNQBbPVB7VPK

That’s the copy I have.

Neuromancer by William Gibson.

Neuromancer https://www.amazon.com/dp/0441569595/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_ixV8AbZ5SWX6N

Slant by Greg Bear

Neuromancer by William Gibson

Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke