Stats for nerds
1recommend
3mentions
2people
2017–2023years
67% recommend33% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Check out Recursion my Tony Ballantyne[1]! I'm 90% sure that is where my subconscious pulled the plot from. :D
He does an amazing job describing tactics used to fight off grey goo gone wild.
- I am confused, modern Science Fiction has gone way beyond Cyberpunk. It takes into consideration what having real AI might mean for the world, or what a post-scarcity society might look like, or how horrible/painful the transition to that post scarcity society might be, as all the current holders of power do everything they can to maintain their grip on the world.
Modern science fiction describes worlds where people can clone their consciousness 50 times over, where it is possible to adjust the perception of time, and where plans take millennia to come to fruition.
Accelerando by Charles Stross. Recursion by Tony Ballantyne. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow.
Yes, these are all evolutions of previous ideas, but Science Fiction has always built on itself.
- Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. Really, anything by Gibson is worth reading multiple times, simply for the great writing style. Pattern Recognition also does something special: have you really ever /thought/ about brands and advertising? Lots of commentary on culture, memetic fashion, and what it means.
Recursion by Tony Ballantyne is a book that I didn't actually like all that much, but reread anyways. It covers a lot of topics I love (global AIs, Von Neumann Machines, tulpas, trusting trust, and a totalitarian utopia). The plot leaves a lot to be desired, but the concepts are worth it.
