Children of the Mind
The planet Lusitania is home to three sentient species: the Pequeninos; a large colony of humans; and the Hive Queen, brought there by Ender. But once against the human race has grown fearful; the Starways Congress has gathered a fleet to destroy Lusitania. Jane, the evolved computer intelligence, can save the three sentient races of Lusitania. She has learned how to move ships outside the universe, and then instantly back to a different world, abolishing the light-speed limit. But it takes all the processing power available to her, and the Starways Congress is shutting down the Net, world by world. Soon Jane will not be able to move the ships. Ender's children must save her if they are to save themselves.
Stats for nerds
3recommend
14mentions
14people
2010–2026years
21% recommend57% neutral21% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I read all of The Expanse. Fun series that takes place after we've colonized the solar system with infighting between Earth, Mars, and those who live out past the belt, when suddenly an alien artifact shows up.
Influx (a large secret govt. sect suppressing technology breakthroughs and keeping it for themselves) and Kill Decision (autonomous killing drones) by Daniel Suarez were fun. I liked Deamon (a murder mystery of sorts where the murderer is already dead and automated scripts and whatnot carry out the deeds) and Freedom (part 2) better however.
Beyond what I've read this year in Sci-Fi, I would recommend the Hyperion saga (my vote for best sci-fi ever), The Martian, Ready Player One, Snapshot (a short by Brandon Sanderson, my favorite author by a wide margin), and, heck, while we are at it, the whole of the Enderverse, though I preferred Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, and Children of the Mind the most).
It has been said that the difference between sci-fi and fantasy is spaceships vs trees. If you are looking for fun fantasy, I suggest just about anything from Brandon Sanderson. He has his Cosmere universe composed of many book series, the best of which are the Stormlight Archives.
- The original quartet is epic, Xenocide and Children of the Mind get a little bit off the cuff, but I really like them. Even the first few in the "Shadow" series were ok, but then quality dropped off. Now there are dozens of books set in the universe.
- I'd read Ender's Game some time before, but recently someone lent me the next three and they're similarly brilliant. Can't decide which is my favourite though; probably not Children of the Mind because the aiùa stuff is weird.
- I have been re-reading Children of the Mind (sequel to Ender's Game) and I had forgotten about Jane, who is an AI that talks to Ender through his earpiece, seeing and hearing everything he does. Jane proactively searches things for him, manages his finances and offers advice, as well as friendly banter. In the novel, the AI is treated like an AGI that treats only him this way, but I realized how very close we are to that reality right now, for everyone.
All of the use cases and integrations for AI seem to be leading toward a future exactly like this. It was interesting to see how reliant he became on his AI (couldn't use a computer, didn't know his own password) - it is barely scifi at this point, and terrifying to see how close that future is, how useful it would be, and how dangerous.
The Internet has globalized/flattened elements of culture very quickly, and AI will only accelerate that. And knowing how vulnerable humans are to suggestion/advertisement/propaganda, it seems like a perfect recipe for disaster. From an evolutionary standpoint, monoculture provides certain short-term advantages but centralizes weaknesses. If nothing else, I think we are in for a bumpy ride, whether or not we continue to boil the ocean.
- Of the Ender series books, I've read the whole quintet - Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide, Children of the Mind, Ender in Exile. I've enjoyed all five of them, although the quality drops which each of the instance. Speaker for the Dead is worth the time for sure, the other three I'm not entirely convinced. Speaker won a Hugo award in 1987.
Of Card's novels, the Shadow Saga, is a pretty good read thou. I've enjoyed it more than the Ender's one. It is set in the same universe, and focuses on Bean - another child from the Battle School. It drifts towards political fiction.
- I would enjoy this different type of classifying genre, and smaller libraries or passionate stores could use both, scifi-identity, or adventure-isolation, mystery-family.
An interesting appliation would be Orson Scott Card's Ender series, which take a turn! Ender's Game? Perhaps scifi-responsibility, as that is the main issue Ender grapples with and has to decide. Speaker for the Dead? Scifi-empathy, and Andrew resolves inter-species traditions, and language, I think.
Children of the Mind might be about belonging, but the point is that this harder-to-create classification benefits readers 100x more. I might be contending with responsibility or empathy, and easily pick a book that will move me.
