Friday, September 19, 2008

Stuff I've read lately

"The Cassini Division" (Ken Macleod) - This is actually the third book in a series. I am really enjoying Macleod. His writing is reminiscent of the "good ole days" of science fiction; with big ideas and epic happenings. And there is a good amount left to be mined here (Cassini is from 1998). Stross is writing too much fantasy (Merchants), and horror (Atrocity Archives). Scalzi has just gotten started.

The Cassini Division is a military unit stationed near Jupiter (and, apparently, a gap in the rings of Saturn). They are charged with protecting Earth (and the orbital settlements) from "post-humans", a group of people who uploaded themselves into computers and set off runaway technological progress (the "singularity").

Macleod has an interesting take on the STL/FTL problem. He uses the "hard" sci-fi notion of wormholes (paired creations, which must be moved apart at STL). However, he also allows that the moving end of the wormhole keeps its own time frame - thus, you can travel 10,000 light years (to a point 10,000 years in the future) fairly soon after the wormhole is created. Interesting stuff.

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