Charlie Stross

Crimes against transhumanity

(Disclaimer: I am a transhumanist skeptic these days, not to mention a singularity curmudgeon and a critic of Mars colonization, but I still find these ideas nice to chew on sometimes.)

That sinking feeling

Lessons learned: writing really long fiction

So, about a decade ago I wrote an essay on this blog about the writing of the Merchant Princes series (at that point, six slim novels—the Empire Games follow-on trilogy wasn't more than a daydream back then), in which I tried to pin down what I'd learned about writing a series.

The gathering crisis in the UK

A different cluetrain

Back to: Escape from the planet of the Ice Giants | Forward to: Even More Obligatory Author Shilling

Sad Trombone Exoplanet Reality Check

Some people on the internet are getting very excited at the (unconfirmed) reports of an "Earth-like" exoplanet orbiting Proxima Centauri , a mere 4.25 light-years away from Earth. If correct, the planet is orbiting in the liquid water zone around our nearest stellar neighbour and is of the same order of mass as the…

Ever young?

I turn 52 next week, and I have a confession to make: I feel like a complete failure at "adulting". Adulting, loosely defined, is that set of activities and behaviours which we judge to be characteristics of grown-ups. You can stop now and make your own list: what I'm going to suggest, speculatively, is that you…

I'm calling this Bubble 2.0, and it's ready to burst

The smart, fashionable startup-people these days are all trying to come up with brilliant and innovative new business models that disrupt struggling industries and synergize for break-out growth potential forming new markets. (Ahem. At least that's what they say.)

Understanding the world science fiction convention

Place Your Bets

The coming retail apocalypse: some axioms

Back to: Rudy #3: Looking For The Big Aha. | Forward to: Rudy #4. More on The Big Aha.

Charlie Stross: Reasons to be Cheerful

Elsewhere on the interwebbytubes, an acquaintance asked, somewhat grumpily, if anything good had happened in the past decade (aside from the iPod).

Amazon: malignant monopoly, or just plain evil?

Back to: The myth of heroism | Forward to: A footnote about the publishing industry

Cutting their own throats

Back to: World building 201: Heuristics | Forward to: Upcoming reading in Edinburgh

Dear Google, am I pregnant?

Here in the UK, we are a signatory to the European Convention of Human Rights, which among other things includes an explicit right to privacy (considerably stronger than the implicit privacy rights acknowledged in the US, which are not enumerated directly by the US constitution).

On the non-use of AI in my writing process

An age-old question

Back to: Let's put the future behind us | Forward to: On the lack of cultural estrangement in SF

Decision Fatigue

Charles Stross YAPCA keynote: The world in 2034

This should be titled Keynote talk for YAPC::NA 2014 . What's up with the title?

Ouch

Back to: Did somebody just try to buy the British government? | Forward to: In case you were wondering ...

What Amazon's ebook strategy really means

It seems to me that a lot of folks in the previous discussion don't really understand quite what makes Amazon so interesting—and threatening, for that matter—to the publishing industry.

Any Sufficiently Advanced Technology Is Indistinguishable from Cthulhu

Hugh Hancock here. Charlie is currently in a space beyond place and time, folded into manifold dimensions that ring like bone-carved bells. Or to put it another way, he's on public transport. So I'm filling in for the day - he'll be back shortly!

They don't make readers like they used to

Doctorow & Stross's "The Rapture of the Nerds" creative commons edition released

We promised it, and here it is (slightly delayed by a signing tour and epic-level jet lag): "The Rapture of the Nerds" by Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross is available as a Creative Commons licensed download right here: The Rapture of the Nerds .

“It'll all be over by Christmas” (Part 2)

On April 16—gosh, it feels like an entire year ago—I made some predictions about where we were going. How do they hold up?

Olympics 2012: A Bruce Schneier Moment

An east London estate, where 700 people live, has received leaflets saying a "Higher Velocity Missile system" could be placed on a water tower. ...

They Took Our Myths

Back to: A product review, and some musing | Forward to: What's The Best Medium For A Storyteller In 2015 And Beyond?

Schadenfreude

"Magic the Gathering: Online Exchange" has magically gathered all your online bitcoins and exchanged them for ... something or other. More here . For once, do read the comments —it's hysterically funny, in a sad way, to watch the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Unexpectedly Good Things VR Will Probably Cause (2016)

This is a guest post by VR developer Hugh Hancock , creator of Vive horror/RPG Left-Hand Path .

Did somebody just try to buy the British government?

Hansard is the official printed transcript of the proceedings of the houses of parliament — in other words, the working log of the British government.