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Accelerando (2005)

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Re: Accelerando (2005)

#171

Post by utopiah »

cstross wrote: post #110
utilityhotbar wrote: post #20

This was written in 2005(!) -> > Manfred drains his beer glass, sets it down, stands up, and begins to walk along the main road, phone glued to the side of his head. He wraps his throat mike around the cheap black plastic casing, pipes the input to a simple listener process. "Are you saying you taught yourself the language just so you could talk to me?" > "Da, was easy: Spawn billion-node neural network, and download…

This was written in 2005(!) -> No, I wrote that in 1998. It was published as the novelette "Lobsters" in Asimov's SF Magazine in 2002, made the Hugo and Nebula shortlists in 2003 (it didn't win), and later became the opening of the novel published in 2005. I emphasized: the direction things were going in was obvious in the late 90s . And don't *ever* let anyone tell you that Accelerando is techno-optimistic or pro-AI…

That's what you assume the intent of the author is, I asked WhateverGPT and it confirmed that it was definitely pro-AI! /s

Re: Accelerando (2005)

#172

Post by watt »

yomismoaqui wrote: post #21

Sorry to hijack the topic (slightly), but after reading all books from The Culture by Iain M. Banks I'm looking for similar Sci-fi. Any recommendations?

try M. John Harrison - he has similar command of the word. His Kefahuchi Tract trilogy (Light, Nova Swing, Empty Space).

Re: Accelerando (2005)

#173

Post by watt »

caconym_ wrote: post #46
yomismoaqui wrote: post #21

Sorry to hijack the topic (slightly), but after reading all books from The Culture by Iain M. Banks I'm looking for similar Sci-fi. Any recommendations?

Echoing others, Reynolds (House of Suns, Pushing Ice, the Revelation Space series), Stross (Accelerando, Glasshouse, and Saturn's Children/Neptune's Brood are my favorites), and Rajaniemi (the Quantum Thief trilogy) scratch roughly the same itch for me.

Reynolds' Aurora trilogy (of Revelation Space - Aurora Rising, Elysium Fire, Machine Vendetta) hits very close.

Re: Accelerando (2005)

#174

Post by watt »

shawn_w wrote: post #141
stackghost wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quality of the prose, the actual craft displayed in the writing of TFBook is... Not great. I tried to read it but couldn't. Merely existing does not make a book worthy of being widely read. It's insane to criticize the openclaw team for not having read it.

It was one of Stross's first books, a fixup of older short stories. He gets better.

gets more conventional, you mean. the book is outstanding.

Re: Accelerando (2005)

#176

Post by veidr »

derektank wrote: post #87
veidr wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vernor Vinge has some hits and some misses, but A Deepness in the Sky (best to just take the plunge and read it without googling — it's good either way, but better if you don't even read the back of the paperback). Then, a bit further afield but for me , at least, exercised what I liked in The Culture series, even though stylistically different: Spin by Robert Charles Wilson.

I think A Fire Upon the Deep would be a more enjoyable starting place for someone that likes the Culture series, even though A Deepness in the Sky is generally considered the better novel.

That is probably true, and I was assuming that if you read A Deepness in the Sky, you would go on to read A Fire Upon the Deep.

But I got it backwards. While A Deepness in the Sky is set earlier than A Fire Upon the Deep, it was actually published later, as a prequel.

So I agree. Read the first-published one, and if you like it, read the other.

Re: Accelerando (2005)

#177

Post by phrotoma »

Ancapistani wrote: post #101
jdr23bc wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blindsight's near future predictions are also looking more reasonable (aside from the vampires maybe)

I read Blindsight three times, and I’m still not sure what happened…

Same. Although tbf this is a defining feature of many of my favourite sci-fi novels. Whenever I revisit the Sprawl or the Bridge trilogies I always notice something I completely missed before.

Re: Accelerando (2005)

#178

Post by miki123211 »

SonnyTark wrote: post #19

Accelerando has prophecies that are coming true and it's scary. Spoiler warning in case you want to read it. The first part's main character basically has the future version of openclaw running in his glasses that let him dispatch agents to do any tasks/research he wants or to autonomously do things for him. -> we are already kinda here He's got such total dependency on his agents that when he loses his glasses he's…

He also predicted smart contracts and DAOs (in accelerando) as well as crypto games and the associated heists (in "Halting State"). Unlike the AI, those predictions are eerily accurate and describe the real mechanics pretty well.

Re: Accelerando (2005)

#179

Post by miki123211 »

Muromec wrote: post #136
mullingitover wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stand by my prediction that when AI comes for the lawyers' jobs, that's when suddenly we'll have the Butlerian Jihad.

You can't exactly start the jihad being a lawyer.

Big tech went from cool corporations to enemies of the people after they made journalists less relevant. The journalists fought back. I can definitely imagine the same happening with AI and lawyers, except that lawyers are far, far more powerful.

Re: Accelerando (2005)

#180

Post by warumdarum »

floren wrote: post #88
warumdarum wrote: post #77

not an easy to read book. recommend singularity sky by the same author which is way catchier vibrant and not "enriched" with "modern" chatarcters by some sociology student editor who never grasped what scifi was all about.

What makes them "modern"?

They are annoying one dimensional stereovtypes of ideologic representations more interested in preaching through cliched interactions , then in beeing believable characters. They have no rea agency, no believable human interests, they behave illogical to drive the plot. Any sane human beeing would have fled the solar system and joined the other (bio)logical beeings waging war on the matroshkas.
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