Charles Stross

Charles Stross (2017)

Charles David George Stross (born October 18, 1964 in Leeds ) is a British science fiction , horror and fantasy author who lives in Edinburgh .

Life

Stross attended the University of London and worked as a pharmacist before giving up and taking a second degree in computer science in Bradford . For several years he wrote numerous articles about KDE , Perl and Linux in the British magazine Computer Shopper , partly as a freelance journalist . His success as a science fiction writer made it possible for him to live as a freelance writer from 2004.

Awards

• 2005 Hugo Award for The Concrete Jungle as best short novel
• 2006 Locus Award for Accelerando for best science fiction novel of the year
• 2007 Sidewise Award for the novels The Family Trade , The Hidden Family and The Clan Corporate from the Merchant Princes cycle
• 2007 Locus Award for Missile Gap as best short novel
• 2007 Prometheus Award for Glass House for best novel
• 2008 Skylark Award for Lifetime Achievement
• 2009 Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis for Glashaus as best foreign novel
• 2010 Hugo Award for Palimpsest as best short novel
• 2013 Locus Award for The Apocalypse Codex for best fantasy novel
• 2014 Hugo Award for Equoid as best short novel

Works

Charles Stross, March 2013, DortCon Dortmund

The list of works is based on the date of first publication. The order of the series is based on the first published volume of the respective series. The information on the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) refers to the first edition of the respective work.

Eschaton

In the original edition, the series appeared under the title The Singularity Sky .

• Singularity . Heyne, 2005, ISBN 3-453-52016-5 (Original title: Singularity Sky . 2003. Translated by Usch Kiausch).

The novel is set four hundred years in a future when humanity was scattered over many worlds by a mysterious being called Eschaton. This event represents a technological singularity and thus justifies the title of the novel. One of the civilizations that emerged - a backward-looking centralized state in the style of late nineteenth-century England - experiences culture shock when an advanced civilization called the Festival drops phones on one of its planets, granting wishes in exchange for stories.

• Supernova . Heyne, 2005, ISBN 3-453-52052-1 (Original title: Iron Sunrise . 2004. Translated by Usch Kiausch).

The mysterious cases of Bob Howard

In the original edition, the series appeared under the title Laundry .

• Charles Stross: Demon Gate. The mysterious cases of Bob Howard . 1st edition. tape 1 . Heyne, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-453-52313-5 (English: The Atrocity Archives . 2004. Translated by Mechthild Barth).

Bob Howard, a messy computer nerd, is a conscript member of a super-secret agency. He fights on two fronts - against demons from parallel universes and against his superiors from the British ministerial bureaucracy.

• The Jennifer morgue . 1st edition. tape 2 . Golden Gryphon Press, Urbana, IL 2006, ISBN 1-930846-45-2 .
• The Fuller Memorandum. Volume 3, 2010, ISBN 978-1-84149-770-9 .
• The Apocalypse Codex. Volume 4, 2012, ISBN 978-1-937007-46-1 .
• The Rhesus Chart. Volume 5, 2014, ISBN 978-0-425-25686-2 .
• The Annihilation Score. Volume 6, 2015, ISBN 978-0-356-50531-2 .
• The Nightmare Stacks. Volume 7, 2016, ISBN 978-0-356-50534-3 .
• The delirum letter. Volume 8, 2017, ISBN 978-0-356-50831-3 .

The series also includes five short stories, some of which have been reprinted in the newer editions of the novels.

• The Concrete Jungle. 2004
• Pimpf. 2006
• Down on the farm. 2008
• Overtime. 2009
• Equoid. 2013

The first two novels as well as the first two short stories are included in On Her Majesty's Occult Service. 2006, ISBN 978-0-7394-8112-7 .

The Merchant Princes

• Volume 1: The Family Trade. 2004, ISBN 0-7653-0929-7 .
• Volume 2: The Hidden Family. 2005, ISBN 0-7653-1347-2 .
• Volume 3: The Clan Corporate. 2006, ISBN 0-7653-0930-0
• Volume 4: The Merchants' War. 2007, ISBN 978-0-7653-1671-4 .
• Volume 5: The Revolution Business. 2009, ISBN 978-0-7653-1672-1 .
• Volume 6: The Trade of Queens. 2010, ISBN 978-0-7653-1673-8 .

Halting State

• You're dead . Heyne, 2010, ISBN 978-3-453-52687-7 (English: Halting State . 2007. Translated by Usch Kiausch).
• Rule 34. 2011, ISBN 978-0-441-02034-8 (based on the Internet Rule 34 )

The children of Saturn

In The Children of Saturn , Stross describes the development of a society of androids after the extinction of mankind. In Neptune's Brood , he continues this story in a very distant future.

• The children of Saturn . Heyne, 2009, ISBN 978-3-453-52578-8 (English: Saturn's Children . 2008. Translated by Usch Kiausch).
• The short story Bit Rot was published in 2010 ( Jonathan Strahan (Ed.): Engineering Infinity. 2010, ISBN 978-1-907519-52-9 ).
• Neptune's Brood. 2013, ISBN 978-0-425-25677-0 .

Single novels

• Accelerando . Heyne, 2006, ISBN 3-453-52195-1 (Original title: Accelerando . 2005. Translated by Usch Kiausch).

In his novel Accelerando (Italian for “getting faster”, a term from music ), Stross takes up the idea of ​​accelerated development towards a technological singularity. The action begins in the first decade of the 21st century. Based on current developments such as the Internet and autonomous software agents as well as advances in genetic engineering , he describes a near future in which all scientific progress will accelerate from decade to decade, until the end of the 21st century practically all celestial bodies in the solar system transformed into thinking matter, the so-called “computronium”. In one single novel, he spans the arc from a very realistic science fiction to an increasingly abstract cosmic civilization that manifests itself as a matryoshka brain .

In this book, Stross coined the term “exocortex” (“external cortex ”) for the technical expansion of the human brain in the context of increasing networking with more or less autonomous hardware and software, initially as cyber glasses and similar artifacts worn on the body via implants towards digital copies of people who once lived in cyberspace and who develop their own consciousness .

In Accelerando , Stross also processes ideas from the open source culture. The protagonist Manfred Macx gives away ideas to business people who get rich with them. In return, he does not receive payment, but favors to cover his livelihood (hotel stays, air travel, etc.). The book itself was published by Stross in addition to printed and salable copies under a Creative Commons license ("by-nc-nd") on the Internet, which allows free reproduction without changing the content, provided the name of the author and the Copy is not used commercially.

• Glass house . 1st edition. Heyne, 2008, ISBN 978-3-453-52360-9 (Original title: Glasshouse . New York 2006.).

The novel is set in a distant future, in which nano-replicators produce any kind of object and a human consciousness can be transferred into a body of almost any shape. The protagonist, a former mercenary, suddenly finds himself in the shapely body of an American housewife from the 1950s, with no memories of his past. He lives with other test subjects in the glass house, a replica of a narrow American town on a spaceship in nowhere. His memories come back only slowly and he begins to plan an uprising against the repressive test leadership.

• Missile Gap. 2006, ISBN 1-59606-058-1 .
• Scratch Monkey. 2011, ISBN 978-1-886778-95-5 .
• with Cory Doctorow : The Rapture of the Nerds. 2012, ISBN 978-0-7653-2910-3 .

Volumes of stories

• Toast. 2002, ISBN 1-58715-413-7 .

Introduction: After the Future Imploded. 2002.

Antibodies. 2000.

Bear trap. 2000.

Extracts from the Club Diary. 1998.

A colder war. 2000.

Toast: A Con Report. 1998.

Ship of Fools. 1995

Dechlorinating the moderator. 1996

Yellow Snow. 1990

Big Brother Iron. 2002

Lobsters. 2001

Afterword: Five Years After the Wire. 2002

• Wireless. 2009, ISBN 978-0-441-01719-5 .

Introduction: Wireless. 2009.

Missile Gap. 2005.

Rogue farm. 2003.

A colder war. 2000.

MAXOS. 2009.

Down on the farm. 2008.

with Cory Doctorow: Unwirer. 2004.

Snowball's chance. 2005.

Trunk and Disorderly. 2007.

Palimpsest. 2009.

stories

• The Boys. 1987.
• In the dream time. 1988.
• Generation gap. 1989.
• Monastery Of Death. 1990.
• Yellow Snow. 1990.
• with Simon Ings : Something Sweet. 1991.
• SEAQ and Destroy. 1991.
• Examination Night. 1992.
• Ancient of Days. 1992.
• with Simon Ings: Tolkowsky's Cut. 1993.
• Red, hot and dark. 1993.
• Ship of Fools. 1995.
• Dechlorinating the moderator. 1996.
• A Boy and His God. 1997.
• Extracts from the Club Diary. 1998.
• Toast: A Con Report. 1998.
• Antibodies. 2000.
• A colder war. 2000.
• Bear trap. 2000.
• Lobsters. 2001.
• Troubadour. 2001.
• Tourist. 2002.
• Halo. 2002.
• Router. 2002.
• with Cory Doctorow Jury Service. 2002.
• Big Brother Iron. 2002.
• Nightfall. 2003.
• Curator. 2003.
• with Cory Doctorow Flowers from Alice. 2003.
• Rogue farm. 2003.
• with Cory Doctorow Appeals Court. 2004.
• with Cory Doctorow Unwirer. 2004.
• Elector. 2004.
• Survivor. 2004.
• Missile Gap. 2005.
• Snowball's chance. 2005.
• Minutes of the Labor Party Conference, 2016. 2006.
• Message in a Time Capsule. 2006.
• Trunk and Disorderly. 2007.
• MAXOS. 2009.
• Palimpsest. 2009.
• A bird in the hand. 2011.
• A tall tail. 2012.
• Life's a Game. 2015.

Non-fiction

• The Web Architect's Handbook. Addison-Wesley, Harlow, England / Reading, Mass 1996, ISBN 0-201-87735-X .

criticism

“The singularity will continue to be a topic in science fiction - albeit probably a little less exaggerated. Singularity advances the Space Opera with new scientific concepts and is at the same time a parody of one of its most popular subgenres, the military SF. Weaknesses in the not too eventful plot and in style - there is hardly a metaphor in the whole novel - Stross counters the meticulousness of scientific information and the design of the setting. The author tries a new literary synthesis in the SF, and it will be seen whether he succeeds better in balancing such different elements in other novels. "

- Wolfgang Neuhaus on singularity

literature

• Uwe Kramm: "If I run out of ideas tomorrow, I could still write books for ten years." A conversation with Charles Stross. In: The Science Fiction Year 2008. Ed .: Sascha Mamczak , Wolfgang Jeschke , Wilhelm Heyne Verlag Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-453-52436-1 , pp. 524-542.
• Wolfgang Neuhaus : Children of Saturn In: The Science Fiction Year 2010. Ed .: Sascha Mamczak, Wolfgang Jeschke, Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-453-52681-5 , pp. 950–953.

Web links

Commons : Charles Stross  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Charles Stross in the catalog of the German National Library
• Charles Stross in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (English)
• Charles Stross in the Science Fiction Awards + Database (English)
• Works by and about Charles Stross at Open Library
• Homepage of Charles Stross

Individual evidence

1. ^ Charles Stross: Linux in Computer Shopper. Retrieved July 22, 2010 . 
2. ↑ The Charles Stross FAQ (English).
3. ^ Works by Charles Stross in the catalog of the German National Library
4. ↑ Internet Speculative Fiction Database (ISFDB) : Works by Charles Stross
5. ↑ Fantastic Fiction: Works by Charles Stross
6. ↑ Charlie's Diary ( blog by Charles Stross): Online Fiction by Charles Stross antipope.org
7. ↑ See Sascha Mamczak and Wolfgang Jeschke (eds.): Das Science Fiction Jahr 2005. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-453-52068-8 , p. 1032 f.