Tag Archives: science fiction

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Rudy Rucker disassembles the Singularity

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simulated-solitons If I could choose one science fiction author in whose head-space I could spend a lengthy holiday (equipped with copious note-taking equipment and a barrel of synaptic cognition enhancers, naturally), Rudy Rucker would be my first choice by a country mile. Despite having a justified reputation as a quirky and colourful writer, he’s a ferociously smart guy. [image by JonDissed]

Here he is debunking the Singularity – or at least the “even better than the real thing” Singularity that some people advocate – by explaining that no Virtual Reality will ever be able to simulate Real Reality accurately, because Real Reality is already running on an incredibly complex and rich computational substrate:

“VR isn’t ever going to replace RR (real reality). We know that our present-day videogames and digital movies don’t fully match the richness of the real world. What’s not so well known is that computer science provides strong evidence that no feasible VR can ever match nature. This is because there are no shortcuts for nature’s computations. Due to a property of the natural world that I call the “principle of natural unpredictability,” fully simulating a bunch of particles for a certain period of time requires a system using about the same number of particles for about the same length of time. Naturally occurring systems don’t allow for drastic shortcuts.”

Rudy Rucker – substantial proof (if proof were needed) that science and hippiedom are two sides of the same coin. There’s masses of free fiction and non-fiction on his website, by the way.

Fiction

UXO, BOMB DOG by Eliot Fintushel

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As promised, original fiction returns to Futurismic – and how! We’re incredibly proud to be publishing Eliot Fintushel‘s story, and we hope you enjoy it too. So please use the comment form at the end to tell us (and Eliot!) what you thought of “Uxo, Bomb Dog”.

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Uxo, Bomb Dog

by Eliot Fintushel

My bomb dog Uxo, my sweetie, my pal, he sweated and huffed, tongue unscrolled, forelegs folded. His fur was matted and dripping.

I held Mumps back with both my arms around her shoulders. The kid had lobbed stones at old Ux and tied soup cans to his tail, but now she’d jump mines to pet him.

“Stay put, little one. Uxo’s pacing himself, is all.”

“You can beat that pile of tin, Uxy.” Mumps’s chin was tear wet. Her voice choked and tumbled over the words. “Damn Volkovoy! Damn him! Cheater!”

We stood on a hill overlooking the meadow. A bunch of other kids ambled behind us, rags and bones, scruffy faces, some little ones on the shoulders of the bigger. Bit by bit, as Uxo and the damn machine cleared the meadow, we’d advance to the new safe zone for a better look. Continue reading UXO, BOMB DOG by Eliot Fintushel →

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The game of consequences

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Simulated reality Science fiction is all about asking “what if?”. Singularitarian blogger Melanie Swann has come up with a hefty crop of questions that are as yet largely unasked by the authors who have chosen to write about post-Singularity societies:

“It could be interesting to look at how society redesigns and reorganizes itself in an upload world. Different subgroups may edit their utility functions in different ways. What are the reproduction norms? Do types of gender proliferate? Which memeplexes would arise and predominate? In the Post-Scarcity Economy, what will be societal organizing factors?”

Speculating slightly less far into the future (and, one assumes, with tongue more firmly in cheek), io9 wonders what the pros and cons would be of having a “Google implant” fitted to your brain:

“PRO: Ability to “remember” many details about a person or issue in the middle of a conversation, so that you can marshal facts quickly and check the accuracy of what other people are saying.

CON: The person you’re talking to could much more easily pretend to be somebody they are not by googling information and feigning expertise.”

That last one wouldn’t be so much of a CON as long as I had that ability too … which I would never use for nefarious purposes, naturally. Ahem. [Image by Felipe Venâncio]

But it raises another question – what place will expertise (as defined by memorised knowledge relating to a particular field of interest) have in a world of ubiquitous computing? Think Phil Dick’s “Variable Man”, but displaced into a knowledge economy …

Blog

Nebula final ballot revealed

This year’s Nebula nominees have been released. The winners will be announced in April after the ceremony in Austin, Texas.

Novels:
Odyssey – McDevitt, Jack (Ace, Nov06)
The Accidental Time Machine – Haldeman, Joe (Ace, Aug07)
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union – Chabon, Michael (HarperCollins, May07)
The New Moon’s Arms – Hopkinson, Nalo (Warner Books, Feb07)
Ragamuffin – Buckell, Tobias (Tor, Jun07)

Novellas:
“Kiosk” – Sterling, Bruce (F&SF, Jan07)
“Memorare” – Wolfe, Gene (F&SF, Apr07)
“Awakening” – Berman, Judith (Black Gate 10, Spr07)
“Stars Seen Through Stone” – Shepard, Lucius (F&SF, Jul07)
“The Helper and His Hero” – Hughes, Matt (F&SF, Feb07 & Mar07)
“Fountain of Age” – Kress, Nancy (Asimov’s, Jul07)

Novelettes:
“The Fiddler of Bayou Teche” – Sherman, Delia (Coyote Road, Trickster Tales, Viking Juvenile, Jul07)
“Pol Pot’s Beautiful Daughter” – Ryman, Geoff (F&SF, Nov06)
“The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs Of North Park After the Change” – Johnson, Kij (Coyote Road, Trickster Tales, Viking Juvenile, Jul07)
“Safeguard” – Kress, Nancy (Asimov’s, Jan07)
“The Children’s Crusade” – Bailey, Robin Wayne (Heroes in Training, DAW, Sep07)
“The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” – Chiang, Ted (F&SF, Sep07)
” Child, Maiden, Mother, Crone” – Bramlett, Terry (Jim Baen’s Universe 7, June 2007)

Short Stories:
“Unique Chicken Goes In Reverse” – Duncan, Andy (Eclipse 1: New Science Fiction And Fantasy, Night Shade Books, Oct07)
“Titanium Mike Saves the Day” – Levine, David D. (F&SF, Apr07)
“Captive Girl” – Pelland, Jennifer (Helix: A Speculative Fiction Quarterly, Fall06 Issue #2)
“Always” – Fowler, Karen Joy (Asimov’s, apr/may07)
“Pride” – Turzillo, Mary (Fast Forward 1, Pyr, February 2007)
“The Story of Love” – Nazarian, Vera (Salt of the Air, Prime Books, Sep06)

Scripts:
Children of Men – Cuaron, Alfonso & Sexton, Timothy J. and Arata, David and Fergus, Mark & Ostby, Hawk (Universal Studios, Dec06)
The Prestige – Nolan, Christopher and Nolan, Jonathan (Newmarket Films, Oct06 based on the novel by Christopher Priest)
Pan’s Labyrinth – del Toro, Guillermo (Time/Warner, Jan07)
V for Vendetta – Wachowski, Larry & Wachowski, Andy (Warner Films, Mar06 Written by the Wachowski Brothers, based on the graphic novel illustrated by David Lloyd and published by Vertigo/DC Comics)
World Enough and Time – Zicree, Marc Scott and Michael Reaves, Michael (Star Trek: New Voyages, www.startreknewvoyages.com, Aug07)
Blink – Moffat, Steven (Doctor Who, BBC/The Sci-Fi Channel, Sep07)

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy:
The True Meaning of Smek Day – Rex, Adam (Hyperion, Oct07)
The Lion Hunter – Wein, Elizabeth (Viking Juvenile, Jun07 (The Mark of Solomon, Book 1))
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Rowling, J. K. (Scholastic Press, Jul07)
The Shadow Speaker – Okorafor-Mbachu, Nnedi (Jump At The Sun, Sep07)
Into the Wild – Durst, Sarah Beth (Penguin Razorbill, Jun07)
Vintage: A Ghost Story – Berman, Steve (Haworth Positronic Press, Mar07)
Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass- Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog – Wilce, Ysabeau S. (Harcourt, Jan07)[via about 50,000 writers’ livejournals]

Blog

Big things are afoot at Tor – major sf publisher goes web2.0

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Tor-Books-logo If you went through last week’s Friday Free Fiction, you’d have noticed me mention Tor Books’ new email newsletter/giveaway program.

As good as that appeared in its own right, it seems much more is in the pipeline at Tor – Simon “Bloggasm” Owens has the scoop on this one, complete with anonymous tip-offs from within the organisation. The Tor site will have simple social networking features in addition to original content (fiction and non-fiction) from authors both on and off the Tor roster.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden confirms the rumours:

“The free digital books are exactly what we say they are: an inducement to get people to pre-register as users and allow us to send them emailed progress reports,” Nielsen Hayden said. “The book-length freebies are a temporary program slated to run from now until when we launch.

Although the site will be ‘giving away’ a lot of content – indeed, all of its content, as we don’t anticipate any part of it being DRMed or paywalled – the core of the site will not be built around a program of free novel giveaways. That said, we reserve the right to give away free digital books any time we think it’s a good idea to do so. (With the cooperation and consent of their authors, naturally.)”

Best go get signed up, if you haven’t already!