Why there won't be a third book in the Halting State trilogy | Hacker News Reader

Why there won't be a third book in the Halting State trilogy

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82 pointsdanohuiginn37 comments

The message is very clear: Charlie, you must write faster. Because of your lazy ways, you're not keeping up with reality, and reality has just caught up with you (in the sf writer world that is a bad thing, remember).

So crank it up already.

Not necessarily. Gibson has weathered it well, IMHO.

I think jwr is attempting to wind-up Charlie, given his notoriety for tweeting his daily word counts and the degree of trauma that this has caused him; often doused by evening libations in a local hostelry.

None of which is an excuse for his sluggishness.

I reckon that there must be a lot of writers out there thinking: "Hell, it was meant to be a cautionary tale, not a creepy government manual".

Although, I do think that in essence we are seeing nothing new from governments, just new ways to perform the old tricks, with greater efficiency.

Hmmmm, now I wonder if the actual problem is efficiency. We mere humans are pitted against technology we simply have no sporting chance against.

I reckon that there must be a lot of writers out there thinking: "Hell, it was meant to be a cautionary tale, not a creepy government manual".

People have a habit of doing this with lots of narrative art. My favorite example is the movie Wall Street, which was apparently supposed to be a cautionary tale about what happens what the amoral will do anything to make money.

Instead, a lot of people saw it and thought, "Gee, it looks like you can make a lot of money in finance—and greed is good." Never mind that a villain makes the speech and that the quote is mangled! It's a movie telling us that it's a good idea to follow our worst instincts, so let's do it!

> Hmmmm, now I wonder if the actual problem is efficiency. We mere humans are pitted against technology we simply have no sporting chance against.

Efficiency is exactly the problem: there are many examples of laws which the public would not tolerate with 100% enforcement – the most basic example being things like speeding or jaywalking but it applies to more serious things as well: imagine if the penalties against, say, gay or interracial sex had been enforced against every activist possible because the government was tapping everyone's phones.

Been done "niccolo machiavelli" wrote the book a while back now.

Yeah, the last thing we need is another manual for how governments should control the society in the future, as if 1984 wasn't enough. My guess is the people in NSA are already thinking about how to implement a Minority Report-like pre-crime system, that can be shared with all government agencies.

Precrime has been around since at least 2001 when the no-fly list was created.

That's fine, I'd rather another Laundry book anyway.

Except, those sorta feel a bit worryingly realistic too, these days.

Yes real question is will Bob ever get that cat5 cabling project finished

Dammit, Charlie, stop writing predictive near-future fiction! :-)

Actually I could think of some nasty disutopias post Scottish independence if there's a hung election and the hardline nats get their way.

Well go ahead and enlighten us rather than trolling this thread with baseless Better Together FUD.

Edit: I just saw the full version of your comment on Stross's website:

"And post Independence disutopias I could think of a few real world nasty outcomes for that as my Red Clydeside comrade said the NAT's have a (now well disguised) nasty sectarian/racist streak."

Disclosure: I've been a SNP voter for all of my voting life (~29 years) and a card carrying member on and off during that time. I've encountered many criticisms about the SNP, some of which I agree with, others not, but that's quite a serious accusation and one I've never encountered, maybe you could cite examples of this? I've met plenty of sectarian voters who vote Scottish Labour (having campaigned for the party in Glasgow many times), but I wouldn't accuse the Scottish Labour party of having a hidden seedy sectarian underbelly.

The scare stories in the press seem to be going the other way - accusing the SNP of planning to allow mass immigration post Independence:

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/444422/Prepare-the-border-p...

yeh you right its both "traditions" As one of my Scottish colleagues said the thing that saddened him him about Scotland was the "nasty element of anti englishnes" and sectarianism that was common. And he was very knowledgeable about scotish politics and his facility with "engineering" language makes malcom tucker look like a middle class mommys boy.

There are parts of Scotland where I would feel uncomfortable coming from a mixed (RC/PROD) background.

I could see a post Independence Scotland pandering to right wing anti emigration lobby and or religious or anti gay presure - the same thing happened in Northern Ireland John Major had his feet held to the fire by the hardline unionists -

I think thats on the far end but in the context of a future sf dysutopia not that much of a stretch after all coutrys like Holland had far right politicians making ground.

"I could see a post Independence Scotland pandering to right wing anti emigration lobby and or religious or anti gay presure"

There are far right nutters everywhere - but I like to think we actually have relatively few of them in Scotland, certainly UKIP seems to be doing remarkably badly here:

http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2013/11/18/ukip-s-scotland-op...

Well the EU is seen positively by Scotland as it gets a fair bit of subvention for infrastructure.

Though go to one of the fishing ports and ask a Scottish fisherman about fishing quotas and You might get a different answer.

The EU and Europe is seen as valued by Scots because of things like the European Convention on Human Rights [1] which the current Westminster government are doing their damnedest to undermine.

Also Europe is a huge trading partner for Scotland. I'm not saying the EU is without its faults, but at least an Independent Scotland would ensure Scots have a better say in European policies than the efforts being made by Cameroon and Co.

I agree that fishing in Scotland has suffered badly over the past 20 years, but the blame is squarely with Westminster and the Scottish parliament hasn't been able to do much to reverse the current situation because it's a reserved matter.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_R...

"nasty element of anti englishnes and sectarianism that was common" - that is complete and utter rubbish and your "knowledgeable" colleague is painting a totally inaccurate negative picture about the attitude of Scottish people towards religious, racial and cultural tolerance. He should be ashamed. I will conceded that there are still some problems (which are being addressed) at old-firm games (Rangers vs Celtic) in relation to sectarian chanting, but that's tiny vocal minority who are given a disproportionate level of press coverage. The vast majority of Scottish football fans have no truck with this outmoded behaviour.

As regards "anti englishnes [sic]" - there's always going to be a small minority of idiots who the press can't seem to ignore, but Scotland isn't a xenophobic country.

Have you ever trawled the BBC News website comments section whenever a Scottish matter is opened up to discussion? It's a bit of an eye-opener. There's a very vocal bunch of folks who view Scotland and Scots as a bunch of soap dodgers and benefit lackies. Your pal's assertion cuts both ways there, but I don't view English people as "anti-Scottish" just because of a few feeble minded idiots (e.g. the English Defence League lot).

"I could see a post Independence Scotland pandering to right wing anti emigration lobby and or religious or anti gay presure" - sigh.

Have you looked at the electoral map of Scotland (for both Westminster and Scottish Parliaments). The only viable right of centre Westminster party in Scotland (The Scottish Conservative and Unionists) got their arses handed to them back in 1997 and lost every seat.

Since the 2001 general election they've only managed to win one seat in Scotland. Nigel Farage (UKIP) was more or less told to fuck off and don't show his face again earlier this year when he appeared in Edinburgh.

Scotland as a nation votes centre-left and has centre-left sensibilities culturally and politically. I could say something flame-worthy about Scottish Labour, but Scottish Labour voter's hearts are in the right place despite their Scottish leadership continuing to have its strings inextricably pulled by Westminster Labour - remember Brown's slap down of Wendy Alexander after her "bring it on" referendum challenge to Alex Salmond [1]?)

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Alexander#Scottish_indep...

Sorry my colleague is the real deal a proper red clydsider member of the YCL on the engineering federations black list.

He was first introduced to me as our "smiling Rottweiler" and it turns out that he is one of the swearing coaches for the think of it I would not be surprised.

Hes deeply knowledgeable about Scottish politicos and that was his considered view.

UK leaving the EU. Scotland leaving England (but presumably still a Commonwealth nation...). So take that to the extreme, with the return to city-states, Burning-Man style with citizens moving house in their shipping-container homes as their loyalties/desires change.

One of the great stories of the political landscape today is the... impedance mismatch, for lack of a better word... between technology enabling ever more decentralized control (and for "control", read "government"), and the fact that everywhere you look, centralized governments are expanding their power.

It's one of those thing we're all too close to see clearly, and I do not exempt myself from that problem, but I suspect in a hundred years it'll be one of the "big stories" told about this time period.

Strange how centralized governments everywhere are expanding their power under what are, universally, "small government" neoliberal regimes.

Not strange at all. Neoliberals are for big government everywhere except government regulation of big business. They want government and big business to work together as one organization of plutocrats to control everything.

Have you burned all the strawmen, yet?

Again, by words, "nobody" wants that. By actions... there's plenty of governing official that clearly do. Many of them have a "liberal" label on them. Many of them have other labels on them, too. Labels aren't as interesting as actions, though; distracting people with labels is one of their prime tools.

> [...] under what are, universally, "small government" neoliberal regimes.

Where did you get that idea from?

Look to actions, not words. The US is certainly not a small government country by action, regardless of its words.

Ahem, if only to clarify for our overseas brothers and sisters of the world :), "Scotland leaving the Union" is probably what you meant there. Scotland and England are two of the four countries that form the present United Kingdom [1].

If Scotland gains independence, it will likely remain an active partner in the European Union.

"but presumably still a Commonwealth nation" - yes, the current policy is to continue to with the current British Queen as a constitutional monarch and remain part of the Commonwealth. I myself would rather Scotland become a republic, but I can wait another few years before fighting that battle.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countries_of_the_United_Kingdo...

That would be interesting. Slightly similar to the new region boundaries in Snow Crash? Who needs countries/states as long as you have big enough clan/mafia/corporation groups...

I did have that thought in mind, but was more thinking about how people get upset with their government today (or their neighbors, or anything else they find annoying), but are unable to move to one they like better because they're tied to their house, children's school, etc. But if they can take their house with them, and homeschool with a MOOC, then things become a lot more interesting.

If people are able to move house (all of it but the yard) with 3-4 tractor trailer trucks, things become much more fluid and state & local governments will have to adopt more citizen-friendly policies, or suffer a brain/revenue drain.

Sort of like how Detroit lost almost 60% of it's population because they drove people away with corruption and bad policies. Only now it wouldn't take 70 years to happen.

That's one thing where the renter mindset has an advantage over homeowner mindset - you aren't financially tied to a particular stone, and can easily move as often as your kids can handle the school change and language barriers if you move across countries.

Moving house literally isn't an option anyway if you want to move from one jurisdiction to another, as it likely involves too large distances.

I'm doing quite well in my chosen city-state. Thank you.

(We are talking about Singapore.)

I love Charles Stross but I've had a really hard time with the second person narrative in Halting State.

At first it felt weird, after a few pages it started to feel like a fun gimmick, and after a few more pages I didn't really even notice it anymore.

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