random item

Troperville

Tools

Find recent edits by troper:

back to: Main / CharlesStross

edit article | go to discussion page

10th Dec '12 5:39:01 PM Xtifr

Send Xtifr a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Changed line(s) 1,24 (click to see context) from:

[[quoteright:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/charles-stross-eastercon-09_edited_5426.jpg]]

-->''"Manfred's on the road again, making strangers rich."''\\
 -- ''[[http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accelerando-intro.html Accelerando]]''

SpeculativeFiction author with a bent for PostCyberpunk work dealing with [[{{Transhuman}} posthumanism]] and TheSingularity, but who also has a vast array of other fiction out there. Early in his career, he invented several iconic DungeonsAndDragons monsters, including the Death Knight, githyanki and githzerai, and slaadi. He's also [[http://www.lspace.org/fandom/afp/timelines/afp-timeline.html on record]] as being responsible for bringing FootnoteFever to [[{{Usenet}} alt.fan]].[[Creator/TerryPratchett pratchett]].

!Works by Charles Stross:

* '''[[Literature/{{Accelerando}} The Accelerando Series]]''': Two books (and [[WordOfGod a third planned]]), ''Accelerando'' and ''Glasshouse'', that explore the concept of TheSingularity and its aftermath.

* '''TheLaundrySeries''': Also known as The Bob Howard Series, about a special agent for the "Laundry", which is basically MI6 crossed with Creator/HPLovecraft.

* '''TheMerchantPrincesSeries''': A journalist discovers she has the ability to travel to an AlternateUniverse at will, where her long-lost family are powerful traders.

* '''Literature/TheEschatonSeries''': A far-future series featuring UN weapons inspector Rachel Mansour and Martin Springfield, set in a universe where a [[AGodAmI godlike AI]] called the "Eschaton" has spread humanity across the stars.

* '''Literature/HaltingState''': Two books currently. TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture, EverythingIsOnline, including the criminals and police. A beat cop, an accountant, and a computer game programmer are called in to investigate a bank robbery in a ''WorldOfWarcraft-[[{{Expy}} esque]] online game, which quickly proves to [[GonnaNeedMoreTrope be more than it seems]]. Narrated in [[SecondPersonNarration the Second Person]], in the style of choose-your-own-adventure games.

He also has some stand-alone works, including:
* ''[[http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm A Colder War]]'', a novella combining the RedScare with the [[Creator/HPLovecraft Cthulhu Mythos]] with terrifying results.
* ''Missile Gap'', a novella combining the Cold War and the late Space Age with science and a bit of the fantastic. To say too much about the plot would be to give it away.
* ''Saturn's Children'', a novel written in homage to late-period Creator/RobertAHeinlein, about a future in which [[HumanitysWake humanity has gone extinct]] and the solar system is overrun by robots. It travels ''all'' over the solar system; there's an early section set in a MercurialBase on Mercury itself, the climax takes place on the [[ScienceMarchesOn newly discovered]] dwarf planet Eris, and it hits a decent fraction of the intermediate planets at one time or another. The American edition has a notably ContemptibleCover (to the point where Stross himself made a blog post saying, in effect, "I'm sorry; it's not my fault.") ''Neptune's Brood'', [[SequelGap a sequel set 5,000 years later on a extrasolar waterworld]], is set for release in 2013.
** Unusually for such covers, it's actually being a fairly accurate portrait of the protagonist, a literal SexBot. If anything, the breasts aren't large ''enough''. Also, it's an ironically appropriate reference to the similarly spathic cover art of the most common paperback edition of Heinlein's ''Friday''. Still embarrassing to read on the bus, though.

to:

3rd Nov '12 3:12:33 PM Xtifr

Send Xtifr a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Changed line(s) 10,11 (click to see context) from:

to:

Changed line(s) 16,17 (click to see context) from:

to:

3rd Nov '12 4:10:51 AM AFP

Send AFP a PM notification explaining the badness of natter: natter-fy

Changed line(s) 18,19 (click to see context) from:

to:

2nd Nov '12 7:58:10 AM AFP