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ArisKatsaris comments on February 2014 Media Thread - Less Wrong Discussion
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Fiction Books Thread
Ancillary Justice is one of the best debut science fiction novels of 2013. It concerns an AI that used to control a ship with its own humans it had direct control over. There are two alternating narratives, one when the ship is complete and another when the ship has been reduced to a single human. As you can imagine, much of the story involves the identity of beings that control numerous individual bodies.
Ancillary Justice is quite good, and it went on to win the Nebula and Hugo awards for the year.
In addition to AI and identity theory, there is also quite a bit about gender and language, as the dominant empire has no gender in its language and little to no dimorphism, either physically or culturally. The AI tends to guess (with mixed results) when dealing with other languages and cultures.
It's been mentioned before a couple years ago, but I highly recommend The Steerswoman's Road. Definitely what we would consider to be rationalist "fantasy", though as the protagonist applies logic and scientific reasoning, it becomes more of a sci fi.
From a blogger who explains better than I could: "Too much science fiction glorifies mere scientific fact and appeals to scientific authority. Such books are doomed to obsolescence as the state of the art passes them by. Rosemary Kirstein’s books, in contrast, are made timeless by their emphasis on the process of science, which anyone can do. The Steerswoman is a fun work of fantasy fiction with dragons, sword fights, and magic — and also a well-honed work of science fiction, demanding to know the answers to hard questions and the logic behind the magic. The Steerswoman lets the reader watch as the characters use the scientific method to discover the true nature of their world. I cannot recommend this book, and its sequels, highly enough."
Sounds great! I ordered it, even though it isn't available as an e-book.
Manga:
More enthusiasm for Diaspora-- probably the best sense of wonder science fiction I've read.
I suspect the rule against exponential growth is neither definable nor enforceable, but it kept the book from turning into a series of dreary territorial fights.
Yes, I take that as very similar to Vinge's Zones of Thought - it's almost moronic if you try to take it as any sort of plausible prediction or resolution to the Great Silence, but both reader and author agree to suspend disbelief on that premise in order to keep human-level stories possible.
(At least, I really hope Egan doesn't seriously think that there would be any gentleman's agreement against exponential growth, because his particular multiverse makes the problem of the Great Silence exponentially worse than it already is.)
I don't think an effective gentleman's agreement against exponential growth is conceivable. An actual government might be possible, but that would be a very hard problem, and might have a tendency to take over the story.
Better to handwave, and hope the reader doesn't notice or doesn't care.
All of P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves stories, in approximate chronological order. (Currently in the middle of The Mating Season.) They are really very fine comic writing indeed.
The Incrementalists by Brust and White. About 200 people who semi-share a memory palace, have immortality of a sort thereby, know a lot about manipulating people, and work to make human society better, bit by bit.
Definitely sf for rationalists. Ends just before the really interesting stuff would start to happen.
The Martian, by Andy Weir. This was first published chapter-by-chapter on his website and was taken down when he got picked up by a publisher. (I found this out by going to link it on an earlier thread and realizing it wasn't there anymore...)
It is serious, well-researched hard sci-fi: astronaut goes on a Mars mission, basically everything goes wrong, he has to do something with the resources available. (Opening lines: "I'm pretty much fucked. That's my considered opinion. Fucked.")
The Bride of Death by Tim Pratt-- this is an urban fantasy series with a pleasant mixture of wiseass and horror. I just ran into a mention of p-zombies. Anyone know whether Pratt hangs out in rationalist venues?
Brandon Sanderson's Elantris: engaging, but at times annoying due to a number of idiot plots, more prominent than in his later Mistborn series.