If you like the science fictional genre “space opera”, I would very highly recommend Charlie Stross’s Singularity Sky.
What happens when an autocratic society meets an economic and informational singularity? (By singularity, seem to mean the thing that Vernor Vinge talks about here and which the transhumanists seem awfully fond of.) There’s some neat stuff in this book.
(Though one section of the book, which I misread as a flash-forward which contained a flashback and was only a flashback, confused the hell out of me for about 150 pages, until I reread the (ho ho) offending passage for the fifth time.)
It’s a fun one, though the very mathematical/geometrically defined and described space battles did a number on my poor wee brain. This one I would highly recommend to any science fiction readers out there!
An interview with the author, here. (He likes Bruce Sterling: hope that won’t be too much of a disincentive, i!)
UPDATE: I just remembered that this short story, “Lobsters”, was the reason that I picked up Singularity Sky.
I’m just trying to keep up with the reading blogs.
It’s okay for me to read something by someone who likes Bruce Sterling; after all, apparently you’re one of those guys. And it’s also possible that I’ve got DC about various cyberpunk authors. Who wrote that Johnny Mnemonic thing? Was that Sterling? Who’s the other guy?
Really, I just want to keep up, here, but I’m still reading the same half-okay novel I’ve been reading since I lost that other thing. My reading life has become wholly disheartening. I’ve got this Lobsters thing open in one window now, though; I’m going to, at some point, read some of that. Maybe even ALL of it. Of course I’ve got my other lives to attend to — the stupid box, where the season has started; I’ve already got a West Wing episode to catch up on, and tonight’s Survivor, while I’ll tape Friends and Scrubs…
(In case it’s not sorta obvious, I’ve decided to come out of the closet. I PARTICIPATE IN POP CULTURE. At least inasmuch as I watch TeeVee, regular, old-fashioned network TeeVee, a good bit. I’m not apologizing; I’m just sayin’. But.. but… okay. I should probably write this up for an entry on my own punchbowl instead of hogging up some more comment space over here where I should be still asking about who’s that other… Campbell? F, that ain’t it.)
Anyway. I’m gonna read that story. During the commercials.
hey, i like pop culture too. mostly movies, though.
we don’t really have a television.
i mean, we do, but there’s only an antenna on the thing, and we’re too cheap to buy cable.
and, i’m not really obsessive/compulsive about tv, in the way i am about reading.
people say: wow, you read so much! that’s great! i wish i could read more!
and i think: no. you really don’t. trust me.
i think, really, what it’s about is a constant searching for that thing that just zings out and latches onto your brain (kind of like that pancake that latches onto spock’s head, y’know). but the truth is, that’s so rare, that brainzooming reading experience.