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216 pointsrfreytag28 comments

Tangentially, if you like Stross you may also like Peter Watts, who also has a backlist of work available online: http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm

Watts' "Rifters" trilogy is there in its entirety. Also "Blindsight", which is fascinating. His latest book is "Echopraxia", a sequel to Blindsight, which isn't there, but you could always consider buying it if you like his other stuff!

Amusingly, as vampires are/were in fashion, both Stross and Watts have written books featuring nonstandard imaginative interpretations of vampires. Strossian vampires are explainable in the context of Laundry-universe magic, and enjoy investment banking [1], and Scrum practices. Wattsian vampires are resurrected from the dead by human genetic engineering, and have an unfortunate flaw (well, unfortunate for them, fortunate for the humans who enslave them) - "the Crucifix glitch" - that cause them to go into seizures when they see right angles [2][3].

[1] novel: "The Rhesus Chart" ; [2] http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts/VampireDomestication.pdf ; [3] novel: "Blindsight" .

Seconding _Blindsight_, which is a great book (which he describes as 'a philosophical rumination on the nature of consciousness with an unhealthy focus on space vampires') You won't think about consciousness the same way again. And it's free!

This book also led me to discover _Portia Labiata_, a bewilderingly intelligent spider --- and so cute! https://www.flickr.com/photos/hirzi/6285232356 There's an accessible paper on what makes it so interesting here: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Duane_Harland/publicatio... I wonder if Watts' suggestion that it timeshares its brain has any truth to it?

_Echopraxia_ is also superb, but I thought it was disappointingly similar to _Blindsight_. That doesn't mean it's not in any way a good book, but it's very much based on the same themes.

Be aware that the book called _Firefall_ is an omnibus edition of both books.

I haven't read any of the Rifters books. Worth checking out?

I have not read Blindsight or Echopraxia, they are on my list, but I did really enjoy the Rifters series. It is an interesting take on the whole dystopian genre. Starfish was excellent.

The story in this collection "A Colder War" is a fantastic mash-up of Lovecraft and the US/Soviet Cold War. The combination of science and the occult in the story reminds me in weird ways of Half-Life/Portal, The Manhattan Projects (the graphic novels), and even the real-world Jack Parsons. If you strictly like hard sci fi, it's not for you, but for everyone else, I recommend it.

The story is available in stand-alone HTML here: http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm

That one was great. Terribly bleak.

And if you enjoy that, then you should probably read his "Laundry Files" series, currently up to book 6 and counting. It's the same mashup of Lovecraftian horror, Cold War thrillers, and scientific/IT geekery, but on a larger scale.

"Antibodies" is my favorite: a story about what might happen when P = NP, with a hard AI singularity.

I absolutely adore his writing. It is again and again amazing to me how many new ideas he manages to implant in my brain with how few words. I am even more grateful to how easily accessible he makes his writings. :)

I'm curious about something in the license, "no derivative works". How does this relate to fan fiction? I'm pretty sure using characters by name is verboten. But what if my fan fic is in the same universe with different characters, but responds or references main events?

Well, since the license specifically prohibits derivative works, the question that remains is whether fan fiction is a derivative; it's a gray area: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_issues_with_fan_fiction#...

Charles Stross has a writeup on fan fiction on how he perceives it: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/05/faq-fanf...

I suggest you go with his definition :-)

I would assume he would be pretty relaxed about that as Bob Howard is pretty much based on the BOFH.

Bob's initials are even B.O.F.H.

There can't be enough BOFH's in the universe, that is for sure, since they rule the universe after all ..

Presumably, whatever would be permitted under "fair use" in a standard copyrighted work can't be forbidden by using CC.

There are also a few short stories on tor.com based on Charlie's "Laundry" series: http://www.tor.com/2008/07/20/down-on-the-farm/ ; http://www.tor.com/2009/12/22/overtime/ ; http://www.tor.com/2013/09/24/equoid/ .

Ooh, are we doing Stross links? http://www.goldengryphon.com/Stross-Concrete.html "The Concrete Jungle" was my first Laundry story, before I quite knew what I was getting into.

He also has some other links to his short stories on his blog:

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/online-f...

I believe A Tall Tail could be of interest for the HN crowd:

http://www.tor.com/2012/07/20/a-tall-tail/

My only run-in with Charlie was at YAPC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPQLKTcJ26s

Just finished (two hours ago) the latest Laundry novel, The Anihilation Score. Great to read a story from Mo's POV! I'd link to a review, but they are all spoilerific.

Thank you for reminding me that it's out!

title should be changed to 'toast (not postgres)'

It's pretty clear from the content that it's not about cooked bread or databases.

People who don't recognise the domain appreciate an informative title so they know whether it's worth a click. That said, one that rules out one point of confusion only helps some people and not all.

I know you're getting downvoted, but to be totally honest, the first thing I thought of was postgres TOAST tables as well, given the general technical nature of this site.

Do we need to address every single possible misunderstanding in every headline? This wasn't a costly errant click and if you did click, the page made itself obvious right away, so this feels like nitpicking.

For me, the fact that it had been upvoted as much as it had was enough to warrant an investigative click. If I had expectations to the content at the least I would have been pleasantly surprised. Discovering new things is half the reason I come here!

I certainly wasn't confused to the content after that point, but don't think that editorialising the title would have made much difference before then anyhow.

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cstross

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