Educated Guesswork

Singularity Sky

I've recently finished reading the quite interesting Singularity Sky. Singularity Sky is part of the recent crop of post- singularity science fiction. As with many such books, it primarily takes place among more-or-less standard humans, but with mostly unseen technological gods lurking in the background.

While not perfect, Singularity Sky had two features that endeared it to me. First, Stross really takes relativity seriously. It's hard to write galaxy-spanning science fiction without faster than light travel, but most authors assume the problem away using hyperspace or wormholes without thinking through the consequences. The problem is that relativity says that faster than light travel automatically implies time travel. [*]. Instead of ignoring this problem, Stross glories in it. It's one of the central plot points of the novel.

The second feature is a little more personal. Stross envisions a world in which the Internet Engineering Task Force is rather more important than it is today:

"But the UN is a government--"
"No, it isn't," Martin insisted. "It's a talking shop. Started out as a treaty organization, turned into a bureaucracy, then an escrow agent for various transnational trade and standards agreements. After the Singularity it was taken over by the Internet engineering task force"

Some future... Posted by ekr at November 16, 2003 03:21 PM | TrackBack