Distress
Investigative reporter Andrew Worth turns down a documentary on a mysterious new mental illness -- "Distress, " or acute clinical anxiety syndrome, for another assignment. He's on his way to the artifical island of Stateless, where the world's top physicists are gathering to decide on a new TOE, or Theory of Everything, to replace Einstein's outmoded legacy.Chief among the scientists is the brilliant African Nobel laureate, Violet Mosala, the focus of Worth's story, who is the subject of mysterious death threats. Worth begins his own investigation, but it takes on even more urgency when he finds that Distress, the mental plague now affecting millions, is linked somehow to the approaching "Aleph Moment" when the TOE is finalized. The countdown has begun for a disaster that will reach all the way back to the Big Bang. And beyond...
Stats for nerds
11recommend
23mentions
19people
2009–2026years
52% recommend48% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- > Some years ago I was playing with the idea that the Reality might invent new laws when people look for them, and doesn't bother with laws when no one observes them
There are several books from Greg Egan with this idea in mind: Permutation City and Distress. The latter one is exactly about this idea.
- I’ve liked every Egan book I read but also want to mention Distress. I got shipped it accidentally when I ordered Diaspora and the seller told me to keep it.
It’s set in the “near future” so probably 2020 since it was published in 1998 and does a good job, I think, of talking about things that are happening now- third world empowerment, body augmentation, transgenders, precision pharmacy, biohacking.
And some things we don’t have yet- artificial island nations, self-autists, custom engineered plagues.
I like it because it’s one of those books that stuck with me for describing tech that “we should and one day will have” in that Egan described a “pharm” that compounds medication on the fly to precisely medicate us. For example, it will give you stimulants with your vitamix but have to counter it the next day based on how your body performs. I can’t wait for that and hate having to wait days to adjust meds. I feel similarly about Stephenson’s metaverse description and young lady’s illustrated primer, and nanodrones, and cryptocurrency. And Doctorow’s “comm” device that he described a few years before the iPhone.
- Greg Egan's works, mainly permutation City and Distress. These books go far beyond just LLMs and Greg Egan's novels really put the "hard" in hard sci-fi. But they describe a world where compute is extremely important. The first half of Permutation city especially covers this very well. Distress delves more into biotech and particle physics, but has its share of AI stuff.
FWIW, Egan has a Twitter account and is mostly not that gung-ho about the current LLMs.
- I'll just put out my list since it's probably what people browse those threads for.
I just finished it so I might be biased, but Miller's "A canticle for Leibowitz" is some of the best Sci-fi I've read. Extremely thought provoking, and you get the opportunity to read from someone coming from a very different place than your usual sci-fi writer. I loved the setting and the plot, monasteries are definitively a unique setting for Sci-fi (Think Il Nome della Rosa by Eco meets Mad Max)
Philip K. Dick also has a very unique outlook and is worth a read, either through "Do Androids dream of electric sheep" or "Ubick" (warning: Ubick is extremely weird)
Given my native tongue is French, I'll not forget Barjavel, excellent writing (although I read it in the original French). Like Miller, the philosophy is very different from your usual Sci-fi. La Nuit des Temps (or "The Ice People") and Ravage ("Ashes, Ashes") are great reads.
For Gibson, I'd recommend the Bridge trilogy ("Virtual Light", "Idoru" and "All Tomorrow's Paties") over Necromancer. Gibson writes prose like poetry, it's the best English literature I've read. His writing has a literal taste, sweet yet with a nuanced and rich flavor. Once you are into a book, each sentence is a pleasure to read. But he doesn't make any compromises for newcomers. Necromancer is really hard to grasp. Since the Bridge books are set in a world more similar to our own, it may be more approachable to someone new to the author.
Asimov and Clarke were very popular at their time. But I think they didn't age well. The recommendation in the OP of the Foundation series (though I recommend you limit yourself to the original trilogy) is alright. The idea is very unique, but the writing is poor, and well, gender has a weirdly backward role for a futuristic society.
OP is missing Clarke. Classic author who is responsible for 2001 A Space Odyssey. However, Clarke best work is "Childhood's end". Yeah, the new-age ending didn't age well, but it's still really good. "Rama" is good too, but the sequels do not hold up.
Greg Egan is very obtuse, you need a very good level of math to understand some of his work. But not all of his novels are intractable. I loved "Distress", it introduced me to a very different way to think about gender identity.
I'll second The Tchaikovsky recommendation from OP ("Children of Time") It's very high on my Sci-fi tier list. I'm surprised to see him in such a list, because he's not the conventional Sci-fi recommendation. But it makes sense, Children of Time is such a unique and excellent novel. The premise is insane, the story is excellent, and the writing tops if off. It works surprisingly well.
I'm a big fan of Charles Stross. Accelerando and Glasshouse are definitively very good. But I'll go and recommend "Saturn's Children". It's more his style: Very much like Tchaikovsky, his premises are insanely ridiculous and almost outrageous, but perfectly coherent. His work is so much fun! It's a blast to read through his novels.
- This idea features in Greg Egan's novel "Distress" as one of the dystopian elements.
It's a great novel; but this idea is pretty horrifying.
- I’m non-tech so I immediately though this might be re: Distress, Greg Egan, 1995.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distress_(novel)
Advanced geekery / skullduggery on the artificial island home of an illegal unrepresentable (rogue) state (as in country) amid a global pandemic. Very now.
