I'm going to be doing a reading from "Neptune's Brood", and a signing and Q&A, this Thursday in Edinburgh at 6pm. The venue is Waterstones' bookshop, at the west end of Princes Street. It's ticketed (£3) — I believe there may be wine, and there'll certainly be me plus friends, continuing to a pub afterwards. You can buy tickets online here, or from the counter in the shop.
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Book Launch: Neptune's Brood, Edinburgh, Thursday
By Charlie Stross
Posted by Charlie Stross at 16:12 on July 1, 2013
| Comments (16)
16 Comments
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My copy arrived late yesterday (benefits of preorder I guess) and I finished it just now. A very enjoyable read :) wish I could make it to Edinburg now but it's a bit far :/
Apparently the google play edition is delayed, my preorder hasn't dropped yet.
Oh well I still have half of the revolution trade to get through...
Gplay edition released!
Spam alert in the older posts. I assume it's been noticed already. In case not: cartgreat22 looks to cutting and pasting from the comments and posts, adding links.
Meanwhile, I'll be going back to B&N to hopefully get a copy this aftenoon.
Nailed, and spammer banned. Thanks. (I was out, eating lunch with a friend.)
Success, though not the quick in-and-out I was hoping for. Went straight the new SF section to not find the book shelved (though the website said it was in stock, which of course means little). Wandered around a bit, grabbed a copy of "The Quarry", and finally found someone to go into the backroom and bring me out a copy. Not sure why he didn't bring more than one to put on the shelves. B&N prudish about mermaids?
Looking forward to some good reads.
I'd come if I lived a tad closer, but I'll settle for reviewing Neptune's Brood instead http://www.darkmatterfanzine.com/dmf/neptunes-brood/
Several chapters in my Kindle edition start off with the word "Iam", with the "I" gray, and the next two letters black.
Obviously meaning "I am".
One-line review: Debt, the next 5000 years
Probably old news, but mine arrived from Amazon UK a couple of days ago.
Brilliant work Mr Stross. I have a feeling that the next book in this series(?) will be, err, based around something a little less ordinary that mermaid historical accountants. And bats.
(Assuming there is a case for expansion beyond, then there surely has to be a better foundation?)
Perhaps not.
Whatever are you going to come up with next?
Sorry if this is old news, but linguistic blog Language Log has been talking about a bit of Neptune's Brood: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=5154
"From Charles Stross, Neptune's Brood. It's 7000 AD, and Krina Alizond-114 has this to say about a not-very-helpful piece of interactive software:
"'[T]hese things bore only a thin veneer of intelligence: Once you crack the ice and tumble into the howling void of thoughtlessness beneath, the illusion ceases to be comforting and becomes a major source of irritation.'
"The Siri vs. Siri conversations on YouTube illustrate this idea nicely, e.g.[.....]"
One commenter says:
"'The howling void of thoughtlessness beneath' – As this is Language Log and not AI log, I just thought I'd voice my admiration of the iambic pentameter."
Charlie,
Greatly enjoyed reading the book. Are there any plans to have more books and or stories in the Neptune's Brood universe ? Thanks
Saw a news report a day or two ago about faking people...
'Virtual Lolita' aims to trap chatroom paedophiles
It's a sort of super-Eliza, and a part of the article speculates on whether unleashing it could amount to entrapment: they're not talking about false-positives, but the article is doubtful about how useful it is.
But it's a point about the book-world that the real people are based on a near-unthinking duplication of a human brain, rather than a designed thinking machine. So it doesn't matter if something new happens in the real world.
No current plans for more. And I have numerous other books in the queue to write before there'd be room to slot one in.
(But I had no plans to do more when I finished "Saturn's Children", so this is not the same as "I will never re-visit this universe".)
I'd love to get a no-drm ebook version of this one. Cant find it on tor-forge or tor though - is there one coming? Any idea of when?
Thank you Charlie.
I enjoyed this caper, particularly the word building and the sense of inertia that's inherent in all societies… I wont blather on, but I could.
Best wishes with all you current and future projects. I'm looking forward to them.
Maggie