Implied Spaces
Aristide is a scholar of the implied spaces, seeking meaning amid the accidents of architecture in a universe where reality itself has been sculpted and designed by superhuman machine intelligence. While exploring the pre-technological world Midgarth, one of four dozen pocket universes created within a series of vast, orbital matrioshka computer arrays, Aristide uncovers a fiendish plot threatening to set off a nightmare scenario, and must find a way to save the multiverse from subversion, sabotage, and certain destruction.
Stats for nerds
3recommend
10mentions
4people
2012–2025years
50% recommend50% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- There's a sequence of stories by different authors that allude to one another that I find to be an interesting read in that order.
First, there's the BLIT stories by David Langford. Several of these are online.
https://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/blit.htm
https://www.nature.com/articles/44964 (did you know that Nature did science fiction short stories? https://www.nature.com/nature/articles?type=futures )
https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/different-kinds-o...
Then, you go to Accelerando
https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/acceler...
> Luckily, infowar turns out to be more survivable than nuclear war – especially once it is discovered that a simple anti-aliasing filter stops nine out of ten neural-wetware-crashing Langford fractals from causing anything worse than a mild headache.
This is followed by its sequel-ish Glasshouse https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17866.Glasshouse
It's not technically a sequel, but one can see the universe of Glasshouse following from the ending of Accelerando.
A quick diversion to Vernor Vinge with Peace War and Marooned in Realtime https://www.goodreads.com/series/57273-across-realtime (there's a short story in there titled The Ungoverned)
Implied spaces Walter Jon Williams https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2059573.Implied_Spaces which takes another approach to the unexplored events leading into Glasshouse and a possible path of escalation. The reference passage in this book is:
> “I and my confederates,” Aristide said, “did our best to prevent that degree of autonomy among artificial intelligences. We made the decision to turn away from the Vingean Singularity before most people even knew what it was. But—” He made a gesture with his hands as if dropping a ball. “—I claim no more than the average share of wisdom. We could have made mistakes.”
This then ends with... {spoilers}.
- Adrian Tchaikovsky’s “Final Architecture” series is lots of fun. I also highly recommend the two “Bioforms” books. For standalone novels, I liked “Alien Clay” and “Doors of Eden” the most. For novellas, “Walking to Aldebaran” and “Elder Race”.
Thank you for recommending “Implied Spaces” as well. Walter Jon Williams seems like a new author for me to follow.
- I tried using AI. It scared me. - Tom Scott https://youtu.be/jPhJbKBuNnA
I'm also gonna recommend Accelerando - https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/acceler...
As an aside, I'd also recommend Glasshouse (also by Charles Stross) as an exploration into the human remnants post singularity (and war)... followed by Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams...
> “I and my confederates,” Aristide said, “did our best to prevent that degree of autonomy among artificial intelligences. We made the decision to turn away from the Vingean Singularity before most people even knew what it was. But—” He made a gesture with his hands as if dropping a ball. “—I claim no more than the average share of wisdom. We could have made mistakes.”
for a singularity averted approach of what could be done.
One more I'll toss in, is The Freeze-Frame Revolution by Peter Watts which feels like you're missing a lot of the story (but it is because that's one book of a series) and... well... spoilers.
- If I may suggest dabbling in the BLIT short stories that the Langford fractal mentioned in the fifth decade of the century of wonders.
And following up from Glasshouse with Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams where the exploration of what could have been without the Vile Offspring and computers were harnessed without a singularity... but "tools" such as Curious Yellow are a part of the nightmare scenarios in the possibilities of war.https://ansible.uk/writing/t3_002.html http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/blit.htm https://www.nature.com/articles/44964 https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/different-kinds-of-darkness/ - PC is still my favorite, but he has written a number of really good novels, and his short fiction is also fantastic. Many people seem to like Diaspora even more -- may just be a matter of taste. My love of PC is probably more due to the subject matter (CA's as the underpinning of physics) than due to the book itself being better as literature than his other writing. Like most SF writers, I have a hard time actually remembering his characters -- they are there primarily to present his themes.
If you want a novelist who writes SF but actually creates 3D, memorable characters, try Walter Jon Williams (Aristoi, Metropolitan, Implied Spaces... but avoid his serials IMSHO)
- Not exactly, but Walter Jon Williams keeps switching genres successfully:
- Napoleonic sea fighting
- early cyberpunk (Hardwired)
- middle cyberpunk around the Solar System (Voice of the Whirlwind)
- late cyberpunk post-scarcity space opera(Aristoi)
- transhuman space opera (Implied Spaces)
- New Mexican police procedural / thriller (Days of Atonement)
- near future thrillers (This Is Not A Game and sequelae)
- fantasy of city infrastructure (Metropolitan and City on Fire)
- comedy of manners (the Drake Maijstral trilogy)
- Fall of the Space Roman Empire (Dread Empire's Fall series)
- Medieval fantasy (Quillifer and sequelae)
and a Giant Disaster novel, a Zelaznyesque SF mystery, and a Star Wars work-for-hire.
There's enough there for five separate authors to make marks on the field.
