Results tagged “sf” from Converjed

Finally got hold of the High Frontier supplement for the GURPS Transhuman Space RPG. This is still one of the best "realistic" imaginings of a near-future solar system - probably circa 2150 or even 2200 given current rates. It's certainly on a par with Paul McAuley's Quiet War series.

One thing that also struck me about recent SF I've read:

- Cyberabad Days by Ian McDonland is all about future India
- Quiet War is about a dominant Brazil in space
- Transhuman Space is all about a dominant China in space.

In other words it looks like the BRICs countries will inherit and dominate our SF future.

One of my 28mm Space Marines sneaks a recce with his patrol whilst I set up the table for a Force on Force WW2 game.

The BBC's Planet B is growing on me - characters hunting through a series of virtual worlds for a friend, and dealing with "virals", avatars which are not being driven by humans, and "rogues" - virals which have become sentient. With the vagaries of iPlayer you just need to make sure you catch all the episodes before they die - I think I missed the first 1 or 2, and heard some out of order, but am now trying to go back through in the right sequence.

Could become a cult classic.

This is the second Greg Egan book I've read. The first was Permutation City and that was excellent and the first book in which the idea of copies/upload/personality constructs (PC) made some sort of sense. With Diaspora Egan goes well beyond that, 150 pages in its an excellent book. Even though written nearly a decade ago it visualisation of a future for humanity is far better than most modern SF authors, and it should be quoted as much as Snowcrash when it comes to talking about virtual worlds. The opening chapter describing the "birth" of a new PC, and that PC's first interaction with external data streams, and then its avatar and its virtual world home are superb.

For the record, and it doesn't include any spoilers, Diaspora identifies a future only 100 or so years out when humanity has post-signularity fragmented into about 4 different "species" (compare with the BT future evolution chart I posted a fortnight or so ago):

- Statics - organic, unmodified humans (i.e. us)
- Exhuberants - organic modified humans, whose modifications range from cosmetic to the extremes to cope with hostile environments such as the sea and space
- Gleisner robots - "uploaded" and (I assume) digitally evolved humans who live in mechanical bodies
- Polis residents (I don't think he gives them a name as the story is from their point of view) - uploaded and digitally evolved humans who live in virtual worlds (although those worlds have feeds of the physical world, have agency in it through robots, and can step out into it through Gleisner robots.

Home

7th Son is an audio novel that's being written by JC Hutchins with a lot of promotional interplay in Second Life. Well worth checking out.

Update - busy listening my way through this. Each of the 2 books so far is about 24 x 20 minute episodes read by the author. So far, its not brilliant but its not bad, and at least it begings to get to grips with some of the issues that GND (Genetics/Nano/Digitalisation) technologies coudl bring about.

Third book comes out in July, so I've got 2 weeks to get up to speed!