(Part 2) Best thriller & suspense books according to redditors

Sure. See: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/06/reality-check-1.html

Note that my views fluctuate wildly. I have another singularity novel coming out this September 4th, co-written with Cory Doctorow: "The Rapture of the Nerds":

http://www.amazon.com/The-Rapture-Nerds-Cory-Doctorow/dp/0765329107/

My name is Stephen Leeds, and I am perfectly sane. My hallucinations, however, are all quite mad..

---

I just started the third book in the series, they're great if you want a novella length story along the lines of these two sentences.

Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner

From Amazon:

> There are seven billion-plus humans crowding the surface of 21st century Earth. It is an age of intelligent computers, mass-market psychedelic drugs, politics conducted by assassination, scientists who burn incense to appease volcanoes ...all the hysteria of a dangerously overcrowded world, portrayed in a dazzlingly inventive style.

Review by Joe Haldeman:

> A wake-up call to a world slumbering in the opium dream of consumerisum; in the hazy certainty that we humans were in charge of nature. Science fiction is not about predicting the future, it's about elucidating the present and the past. Brunner's 1968 nightmare is crystallizing around us, in ways he could not have foreseen then. If the right people had read this book, and acted in accordance with its precepts and spirit, our world would not be in such precarious shape today. Maybe it's time for a new generation to read it.

The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. Boneshaker by Cherie Priest. Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. And more.

Doesn't look like it...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mosaic-17K-Christopher-Drake/dp/1521017220/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

You do know these are based on books right?

​

This is most likely season 2


This is most likely season 3

Based on your list, it seems you're a video gamer, too. Nice, so some of your fiction titles reflect that.

• Phantoms by Dean Koontz -- I'm guessing you like Silent Hill or Resident Evil type games. While this book by Koontz doesn't involve zombies, it is centered around a mysterious town. Suddenly everyone in a small American town has disappeared and it's up to a visiting sister and a sheriff to solve the mystery. The plot ramps up quickly and escalates (big time), and it's one of my favorite books. Lots of action, too, with great mix of horror (and a little sci-fi). While Dean Koontz has written some clunkers, early Dean Koontz really rocked.
  
  Kindlie link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001RWQVSK/
  
  
• Andromeda Strain by Micheal Crichton -- One of Crichton's earliest novels and it deals with a team of scientists trapped in a facility as they try to contain a viral outbreak that can destroy the world, but they are running out of time. It's a really thrilling read and was made into a great film, too. Your titles you posted often deals with pandemics or viral attacks so I figured you'd enjoy this.
  
  Kindlie link: https://www.amazon.com/Andromeda-Strain-Michael-Crichton-ebook/dp/B007UH4EPS/
  
  
• Sphere by Micheal Crichton -- Since you mentioned Dead Space series so here's some sci-fi horror. Another one of my favorites from Crichton. While it does deal with aliens and a spaceship, it's actually set on Earth, where instead of something buried in ice (like with The Thing), an alien ship is deep underwater. A team of scientists have to delve deep into the ocean and try to breach the alien ship known as the Sphere.
  
  Kindlie link: https://www.amazon.com/Sphere-Michael-Crichton-ebook/dp/B007UH4G9C/
  
  
• Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell -- this is the horror/sci-fi short story that the The Thing and it's remakes were based on. While written in 1938, it's still a great read (and available on Kindle). The author, Campbell, was a giant figure in the Golden Age of Science Fiction as he was also the editor of Astounding Fiction Magazine, the landmark magazine that ushered in Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Theodore Sturgeon, AE Van Vogt, Henry Kuttner and other legendary sci-fi writers.
  
  Kindlie link: https://www.amazon.com/Goes-There-RosettaBooks-into-Film-ebook/dp/B003XVYLGW
  
  
• Vault of the Beast by A.E. Van Vogt -- another sci-fi horror story from the Golden Age of Science Fiction, this one a short story (on Kindle for only $1.49). Van Vogt's stories are a huge influence on horror and sci-fi writers, influencing Stephen King, Koontz, John Carpenter and many others. I love this creepy tale that is a must for lovers of the The Thing. Here's the first line: "The creature crept. It whimpered from fear and pain, a thing, slobbering sound horrible to hear. Shapeless, formless thing yet changing shape and form with every jerky movement. It crept along the corridor of the space freighter [...]"
  
  Kindlie link: https://www.amazon.com/Vault-Beast-E-van-Vogt-ebook/dp/B001M0N0FO
  
  
• The Nightrunners by Joe R. Landsale or The Drive-In by Joe R. Lansdale -- since you like Evil Dead, Joe R. Lansdale is known for his mix of occasional humor and extreme horror. Like the Evil Dead films, he can get gory, but not at the sacrifice at making creative plots and great characters. Lansdale does also westerns, texas noir, crime novels, etc, which are all great, so he covers a ton of genres. Early Lansdale tended to do more horror, however, as you see from these two books. One of my favorite authors, and great if you want some hi-octane fun.
  
  Kindlie link Nightrunners: https://www.amazon.com/Nightrunners-Joe-R-Lansdale-ebook/dp/B00634UDHC
  
  Kindlie link The Drive-in (book 1 of 3): https://www.amazon.com/Drive-Joe-R-Lansdale-ebook/dp/B00H1L5D9E
  
  
• Natsuo Kirino horror novels (Real World / Out / Grotesque) -- Since you mentioned The Ring which was originally written by Japanese author Koji Suzuki, so maybe try some horror from other Japanese authors. Kirino's works are equally unsettling reads, so I'd recommend checking any of her titles out. You could also try Ryu Murakami, who writes some twisted stuff, like In Miso Soup or Coin Locker Babies.
  
  I also agree with others for their recommendations for Laird Barron, John Langan, Shirley Jackson, Dan Simmons, H.P. Lovecraft, Paul Tremblay, and of course Stephen King. For King, try the Dark Tower series as that's a mix of Western and horror, kind of like if Red Dead Redemption video game went into the horror territory but on an epic scale. Great series. Also check out The Stand which is epic post-apocalyptic tale. I quite liked The Shining as someone else has mentioned and I also liked Salem's Lot.
  
  Lastly, for a great (and free) short story that is a nice twist on The Thing, check out this story that has a similar premise, only it's from the alien's point of view. It was quite cool, and an interesting idea to see how things would look like from the alien's side.
  
  All the Painted Stars by Gwendolyn Clare -- available to read online here at Clarkesworld Magazine website
  
  
  

The City and the City by China Mieville. Link.

Detective story set in a fictional Eastern European city. More than that I don't know beyond having enjoyed the first two chapters when I read them in the bookstore and having had it recommended over and over again to me.

My recommendations from books I read in the last year or so (yes, these are all VERY STRONG recommends curated from ~100 books in the last year) -

​

Science fiction-

Derek Kunsken's The Quantum Magician (I would describe it as a cross between Oceans Eleven with some not-too-Hard Science Fiction. Apparently will be a series, but is perfectly fine as a standalone novel).

Cixin Lu's very popular Three Body Problem series (Mixes cleverly politics, sociology, psychology and science fiction)

James A Corey's The Expanse Series (which has been made into the best sci fi tv series ever!)

Hannu Rajaniemi's Quantum Thief series (Hard science fiction. WARNING - A lot of the early stuff is intentionally mystifying with endless terminology that’s only slowly explained since the main character himself has lost his memories. Put piecing it all together is part of the charm.)

​

Fantasy-

James Islington's Shadow of What was Lost series (a deep series which makes you think - deep magic, politics, religion all intertwined)

Will Wight's Cradle series (has my vote for one of the best fantasy series ever written)

Brandon Sanderson Legion series (Brandon Sanderson. Nuff said. Creative as always)

​

Manga -

Yukito Kishiro's Alita, Battle Angel series (the manga on what the movie was based)

​

Non-Fiction-

Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind - Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (and how we are not as rational as we believe we are, and how passion works in tandem with rationality in decision making and is actually required for good decisionmaking)

Rothery's Geology - A Complete Introduction (as per title)

Joseph Krauskopf's A Rabbi's Impressions of the Oberammergau Passion Play, available to read online for free, including a fabulous supplementary of Talmud Parallels to the NT (a Rabbi in 1901 explains why he is not a Christian)

​

Audiobooks -

Bob Brier's The History of Ancient Egypt (as per title - 25 hrs of the best audiobook lectures. Incredible)

​

Academic biblical studies-

Richard Elliot Friedman's Who Wrote The Bible and The Exodus (best academic biblical introductory books into the Documentary Hypothesis and Qenite/Midian hypothesis)

Israel Finkelstein's The Bible Unearthed (how archaelogy relates to the bible)

E.P. Sander's Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63BCE-66CE ​(most detailed book of what Judaism is and their beliefs, and one can see from this balanced [Christian] scholar how Christianity has colored our perspectives of what Jews and Pharisees were really like)

Avigdor Shinan's From gods to God (how Israel transitioned from polytheism to monotheism)

Mark S Smith's The Early History of God (early history of Israel, Canaanites, and YHWH)

James D Tabor's Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity (as per title)

Tom Dykstra's Mark Canonizer of Paul (engrossing - will make you view the gospel of Mark with new eyes)

Jacob L Wright's King David and His Reign Revisited (enhanced ibook - most readable book ever on King David)

Jacob Dunn's thesis on the Midianite/Kenite hypothesis (free pdf download - warning - highly technical but also extremely well referenced)

• Lights Out by David Crawford
  
• Going Home by A. American (and the whole Survivalist series that follows)
  
• Patriots by James Wesley, Rawles
  
• Enemies Foreign and Domestic by Matthew Bracken
  
• The Postman by David Brin
  
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy
  
• Breakers by Edward W. Robertson (and the rest of the series; good deals on Kindle bundles)
  
  

You will love anything by Jack McDevitt. Especially http://www.amazon.com/Seeker-Jack-McDevitt/dp/0441013759

There was a cyberpunk/dystopia book published last year where the flooding of the Ohio River was a major part of the background.

It's called Mosaic 17K. It's by Christopher Drake. I really liked it. Fair warning: It's a big book.

If you're looking for something really dark I'd suggest Harry Connolly's Twenty Palaces series. The first one is Child of Fire. I really enjoyed it and Jim Butcher has also recommend it. Keep in mind there are only 3 books and 1 prequel that Harry self published due to his publisher dropping him.

If you're looking for something stupid and funny I recommend John Dies at the End and it's sequel This Books is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It. I have to admit I'm a bit biased on those though, I won a free signed copy of TBiFoS by participating in an alternate reality game around the time of its release.

The best SF books I read published in 2014 were:

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North.

The Peripheral by William Gibson.

Echopraxia, sequel to Blindsight by Peter Watts.

Lines of Departure, sequel to Terms of Enlistment by Marko Kloos.

Ancillary Sword, sequel to Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie.

Cibola Burn, 4th in a series that starts with Leviathan Wakes by James SA Corey.

A Darkling Sea by James Cambias.

China Mieville's The City and The City.

Once I managed to wrap my head around the concept, I couldn't put it down.

I have heard good things about Public Enemy Zero and it averages almost 5 stars out of 171 reviews on Amazon. It also has the advantage of only being $0.99, so pretty much anyone should be able to join in.

Edit

I just thought of another good book that should be in the ring...and the best thing is that this one is legally available for free. Accelerando, (non free link) by Charles Stross. Unlike Public Enemy Zero, I have read this one, and can attest to it's awesome. Manybooks (free link) has the book in pretty much every format you can imagine, for pretty much any reader device or software imaginable.

Finally finished my ASoIaF re-read, though I think that was before December. AFfC and aDwD are so fucking underrated. I seriously have a hard time figuring out who the hell is reading that series in the first place that somehow doesn't get those two books.

Kinda want to put some more fantasy/sci-fi in the rotation but over the last couple months I've made some attempts that remind me why I gave up most genre fiction. Started into Simmons' Hyperion and holy fuck if I never hear the word "cruciform" again . . . It seems like there could be a cool story under there, but the writing is clumsy as hell (yes, even after accounting for what's up with the stretch with all the "cruciform" bullshit). Listening to the audiobook might have aggravated the repetitiveness of some portions, but uggh. I feel like I'll eventually finish at least Hyperion just because of how much positive stuff I've heard about the story but I doubt it's gonna reel me in for the two sequels.

Also tried dipping my toe into the first of Sanderson's Stormlight books and goddamn I am not going to finish that one. Turns out everything in the world is a compound word, formed of the kewlest words Sanderson knows. Storm+light. Shard+blade. Oath+pact. "Oathpact." It's a compound word made out of fucking synonyms. It's super high fantasy, which makes me leery to begin with, but every other word is a proper compound noun that I would've made up for my D&D games when I was 11. Despite all the made up words there's still no useful descriptions of the world; I know the magic armor is scaled, but have no idea who the people being killed are or why I'd care. Like three chapters of this jargony bullshit and I still don't even know what the little fairies that apparently appear everywhere, constantly, in response to everyone's emotions, even look like. People sprinting across a battlefield can still casually converse about how clever their tactics are, even while too rushed to simply grip a shield. This is why genre fiction is a ghetto, people.

Got The Peripheral for my birthday a bit ago, and I'm about to be unemployed and sober for a bit so I'm going to be just straight blasting through this bitch. Got some book on a mathematical proof of natural selection for Christmas, should take about an afternoon it looks like.

After that I'm'a stack a couple serious sounding things -- Wittgenstein's Blue and Brown or Philosophic Investigations, go back and reread The Prince, like serious-taking-notes-and-shit style. Mebbe raid my buddy's library of political philosophy textbooks. And 1:1 salt in some lighter stuff -- still got a stack of Thompson's later shit to work through, still need to read Confederacy of Dunces, etc.

Here's a transcript and web audio / web video / download audio, 43MB MP3, 1hr 33min / download video, 197MB MP4, 1hr 41min of the full interview. He also reads a chapter from his upcoming novel The Peripheral, which you can now pre-order (Amazon.com / Amazon UK).

Thats the premise of this book, though technically there not zombies. It's a really good book and a unique take,on the subject

http://www.amazon.com/Public-Enemy-Zero-Andrew-Mayne-ebook/dp/B0052ZUXPA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394933976&sr=8-1&keywords=Public+enemy+zero

The Twenty Palaces series got me through those extra months between Changes and Ghost Story; and seeing as how I found out about the series from Jim's website that ought to say something.

http://www.amazon.com/Child-Fire-Twenty-Palaces-Novel/dp/0345508890/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1318576688&sr=8-4

I am a big, big fan of the Twenty Palaces series by Harry Connolly. Pretty highly gritty IMO, but if that's what you like you should be fine. If you like Dresden Files, you may note that the first published book has a pull quote from Jim Butcher right up there on the front.

I like a lot of Non-Fiction and just finished Think Like A Freak, by the Freakanomics authors and really enjoyed it! If you like novels, I highly recommend The Peripheral

I think both are great, but the audio drama is probably slightly better. The movie falls apart towards the end, mostly because they felt a need to include some onscreen action, while the radioplay's ending has a better conceptual continuity to the plot.

The original book both are based on is hella cool and weird, too, although the movie only adapts the first of several linked narratives from it. As far as I know, though, the field of true literary fiction about zombies at this point comprises just Pontypool Changes Everything and Colson Whitehead's zombie book.

> Also, what are you reading lately?

I got the first Saga book (already had #2 and #3) and blew threw that today. Getting ready to start The Peripheral.

not completely military, but Rickard K Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs books are really good reads.

Altered Carbon

Broken Angels


Woken Furies

and there's his non Takeshi book:

Thirteen

If you're seriously interested in augmented reality and its future implications I recommend reading Daniel Suarez's Daemon and the sequel Freedom.

I highly recommend The Difference Engine, cowritten by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, in which novel Lord Byron's daughter figures highly.

Quoth Amazon.com: "A collaborative novel from the premier cyberpunk authors, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Part detective story, part historical thriller, The Difference Engine takes us not forward but back, to an imagined 1885: the Industrial Revolution is in full and inexorable swing, powered by steam-driven, cybernetic engines. Charles Babbage perfects his Analytical Engine, and the computer age arrives a century ahead of its time."

Je viens de terminer de lire Ready Player One de Ernest Cline.

C'est de la SF dans un monde qui est devenu tellement pourrave que tout le monde préfère vivre dans un univers virtuel qui s'appelle OASIS. Le créateur d'OASIS vient de mourir et lègue sa fortune à quiconque retrouvera les 3 clés cachés à travers cet univers.

Le bouquin raconte l'histoire d'un djeuns qui cherche ces clés tout en luttant contre la méchante corporation (Comcast) qui veut gagner ce jeu pour prendre le contrôle d'OASIS et le transformer en allocine.fr sans adblock.

Le bouquin est bourré raz bord de references à des elements de pop culture des années 80 dans lesquelles je ne me suis pas forcément retrouvé mais le livre est assez marrant, très facile à lire et super accrochant. Je l'ai lu quasiment d'une traite.

Verdict: 9/10

Avec du riz: 6/10. Le livre n'est pas comestible et le riz colle aux pages.

You should read "Kill decision" by Suarez - best scifi this year - and the main character is an ant researcher.
http://www.amazon.com/Kill-Decision-Daniel-Suarez/dp/0525952616

I highly recommend this book (and the two that follow in the series):


https://www.amazon.com/Enemies-Foreign-Domestic-Matthew-Bracken/dp/0972831010

This has prompted me to read Ready Player One

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ready-Player-One-Ernest-Cline/dp/0099560437

>It's the year 2044, and the real world has become an ugly place. We're out of oil. We've wrecked the climate. Famine, poverty, and disease are widespread.

>Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes this depressing reality by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia where you can be anything you want to be, where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets. And like most of humanity, Wade is obsessed by the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this alternate reality: OASIS founder James Halliday, who dies with no heir, has promised that control of the OASIS - and his massive fortune - will go to the person who can solve the riddles he has left scattered throughout his creation.

The last time I read this, around two years or so ago, it still a little far fetched but now VR akin to basic headset version in this book seems astonishingly plausible in the next 10 to 20 years let alone 30.

Broken Angels by Richard Morgan - Set in a future where humans download there minds and transmit them in stead of physically traveling across space due to never being able to break the speed of light with ships. Then download into new sometimes genetically engineered and enhanced bodies. A pilot hires Takeshi Kovacs to help retrieve an ancient alien artifact from the middle of a war zone.

Not counting shipping, this is only a penny (but costs four bucks with), or there is this for 99 cents total.

This pretty purple dress is $36.99, free shipping.

Congratulations on having your first contest!! And thank you. :)

http://www.amazon.com/Enemies-Foreign-Domestic-Matthew-Bracken/dp/0972831010

And stop making up fly fishers look like crazy assholes.

Meh. Only if they are troublesome. If they aren't a problem, why bother? If you disagree with me, read Legion by Brandon Sanderson.

Sorry it's actually, "The City and The City". The author is China Mieville.
http://www.amazon.com/City-China-Mieville/dp/0345497511

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_%26_the_City

You need to read Micheal Swanwick - Bones of the Earth. It is an awesome short sci-fi novel. The amazon description doesn't do it justice. Let's just call it paleontologist-time-travel-porn. You'll love it.

I too, like books. I think you'd like The Andromeda Strain. It's by the same author who wrote Jurassic Park.

I found China Mieville's "The City & The City" to be quite an interesting book.

Chris Weatherman, the author, is a good guy too. I agree with /u/TheGreyWatcher that the first book in the series was the best but they're easy reads.

While less about the prepper's mindset or the journey you encounter in "Going Home," you may also enjoy Matthew Bracken's series, beginning with "Enemies, Foreign and Domestic" -
https://www.amazon.com/Enemies-Foreign-Domestic-Matthew-Bracken/dp/0972831010.

This is not exactly what you're looking for but may be close enough.

Jack McDevitt has a series of novels about 2 antiquities dealers in future. Typically they come across an unusual artifact or story. They then have to work out the truth in a similar fashion to the detective mysteries you mention.

They are called the Alex Benedict novels. They are an easy read but raise interesting questions IMHO. All but the first are told from the PoV of Chase Kolpath, Alex Benedict's pilot and partner.

I started with the third novel, Seeker, which won the Nebula award.

I've read them all and found them entertaining, though somewhat repetitive in some plot devices. You don't have to start at the beginning of the series.

FWIW Jack McDevitt has a second group of books called The Academy series. I've read a few of them and liked them but prefer the Alex Benedict novels.

Hope this helps. You might also ask for help in /r/printsf - a sub dedicated to written scifi.

Edit: I also thought of another story that contains an pretty good mystery. It's called Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future. It has a great ending.

I have an unrelated recommendation, William Gibson's newish book "The Peripheral". It makes no sense and I had to read the first seven or so chapters twice (they are short). But once it took hold and I understood it-wow. Its science fiction/cyberpunk. Amazing book. You have to be smart to get it. Its probably even a rung too high on the ladder for me, but I was able to power through with help from wikipedia and a slow pace. Its fantastic. Gibson once again reinvents science fiction. Check it out!

It's definitely not a perfect movie; I read somewhere that Tony Burgess, the author of the novel on which the film was based as well as the screenplay, kept redrafting the script until finally the director asked for a copy on the first day of shooting. Had shooting started a few days later, the film might've ended up completely differently. My guess is that some of the ideas, especially the "May I see you in the morning" and etc. bits were remnants of some ideas that got lost as the writing of the script progressed.

Speaking of which, if you get a chance, read Pontypool Changes Everything (on which the movie's based) beacuse it's somehow enormously more insane than the movie. Grant Mazzy is a wholly different character in the novel and there's all sorts of weirdness in there...I loved it; it was nuts.

http://www.amazon.com/Bones-Earth-Michael-Swanwick/dp/0380812894

Please Please read this one! It makes you feel as if you are placed among the Dinosaurs, you can smell the smells, feel the dew on your skin. It's a time travel book that places you back with these prehistoric creatures.

(page 3)



Question (revjeremyduncan):

> For someone who is unfamiliar with your work, what book would you suggest as a good starting point (if it's available for Kindle, I will get it as soon as I see your answer)?
>
> Any plans to follow in L. Ron's footsteps and start a religion?

Answer (cstross):

> I'm an atheist (subtype: generally agree with Richard Dawkins but think he could be slightly more polite; special twist: I was raised in British reform Judaism, which is not like American reform Judaism, much less any other strain of organised religion). So: no cults here.
>
> Starting points: for a sampler, you could try my short story collection "Wireless". Which contains one novella that scooped a Locus award, and one that won a Hugo, and covers a range of different styles.
>
> Otherwise ... if you like spy thrillers/Lovecraftiana, try "The Atrocity Archives", if you like space opera try "Singularity Sky"[], if you like singularity-fic try "Accelerando", if you like near-future thrillers try "Halting State".
>
> [] Which was originally titled "Festival of Fools"; the "Singularity Sky" title was imposed on it by editorial fiat ("hey, isn't the singularity kind of hot this month? Let's change the title!").



Question (danielwb):

> What's your favorite book and movie? :) Thanks for doing an AMA.

Answer (cstross):

> My favourite movie is: "Dr Strangelove". (I haven't seen any films released in the past 2-5 years, I'm afraid: I don't do TV/cinema).
>
> Favourite book ... that's a lot harder! I have a different one every day.



Question (AndrewDowning):

> Can you please expand on that?
> In what way did your views change?
> Accelerando is one of my all time favourites.

Answer (cstross):

> Sure. See: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/06/reality-check-1.html
>
> Note that my views fluctuate wildly. I have another singularity novel coming out this September 4th, co-written with Cory Doctorow: "The Rapture of the Nerds":
>
> http://www.amazon.com/The-Rapture-Nerds-Cory-Doctorow/dp/0765329107/



Question (JesusLasVegas):

> Did you end up with an American agent because all the British agents passed on you? Or did you actually want to do things that way?

Answer (cstross):

> A bit of both. I wanted an agent who would actually sell stuff. After two British agents failed comprehensively, I was reading Locus (the SF field's trade journal) and noticed a press release about an experienced editor leaving her job to join an agent in setting up a new agency. And I went "aha!" -- because what you need is an agent who knows the industry but who doesn't have a huge list of famous clients whose needs will inevitably be put ahead of you. So I emailed her, and ... well, 11 years later I am the client listed at the top of her masthead!



Question (slimme_shady):

> hahahha I'm 15 now. Every time when i have to do an assignment for school, i don't really know how to start, could you give me some advice, please?

Answer (cstross):

> Nope. Because I'm nearly a third of a century older than you, and any advice I could give you about school assignments would be slightly out of date ...!



Question (cheradenine_Zakalwie):

> Wow, I didn't realise the ideas flew in so fast. Is it morbid to ask if you worry about getting it all written before you die? (Im thinking of Terry Pratchett here...)

Answer (cstross):

> Yes, I worry about that. I'm 47. I reckon I can count on 30 more writing years, averaging a book a year (I can't keep up the 2-2.5 a year I used to do these days). And these days I've gotten round to wondering, for each new idea, "do I want to be remembered for this?" before I get to the point of spending a year on it.



Question (argibbs):

> I believe Roald Dahl used to keep a little notebook with all his ideas in, and would jot stuff down whenever and whereever the idea struck. (might not have done, it's been years since I read that nugget). Do you keep a stash of ideas on file (and if so in what format?), or is it simply you write whatever idea strikes most recently? (Related to but not the same as having extra books filed away for when writers block strikes.)

Answer (cstross):

> No, I don't keep anything on paper (except within an actual novel in progress, at which point I need a file to keep track of plot threads, characters, and so on). If an idea is compelling enough it'll stick in my head until I am forced to write it. If it's forgettable, who cares?



Question (DrLocrian):

> Hi!
> Would you consider Halting State and Rule 34 Cyberpunk? I was heavily reminded of Neal Stephensons early books (the craziness of Snow Crash mixed with more current-day themes like Cryptonomicon).
>
> While I love the Laundry books I consider A Colder War one of your best works, is there a chance that we will get another 'serious' story with Lovecraftian themes?
>
> Thanks!

Answer (cstross):

> "Halting State" and "Rule 34" are cyberpunk only insofar as we are living in a 1980s cyberpunk dystopia, and these are very much novels of our time (plus 10-20 years). What I've learned during my life is that the near future is 90% identical to the present -- if you buy a new car today, it'll probably still be on the road in 2022. Another 9% is predictable from existing tech roadmaps: Intel's projected roadmap for where their processors are going, SpaceX's order book for satellite launches, and so on. And 1% is totally bugfuck crazy and impossible to predict. (Go back to 1982 and the idea that the USSR would have collapsed and been replaced by hyper-capitalist oligarchs would have earned you a straitjacket, never mind a book contract. Go back to 1992 and the idea that the USA and Iran would be fighting a proxy war on the internet would have ... well, ditto.)
>
> Lovecraftian seriousness: well, book 5 or 6 of the Laundry series is due to get epically grim.



Question (ihateidaho):

> What was your biggest influence to get you to begin writing?
>
> Thank you for doing this AMA, by the way, I'm a big fan of your work.

Answer (cstross):

> Biggest influence: my mother.
>
> Who is one of those unpublished authors. But when I was about 6, I vividly remember her spending an hour every day hammering away on her typewriter on the kitchen table, trying to write a novel.
>
> She never finished it, much less sold it, but ihat I somehow internalized from this was that writing was something normal adults were allowed to do. And so it didn't look like an insane move when I was thinking of what I wanted to do when I grew up.



Question (canyouhearme):

> Nice to see a bit of social marketing, it will be interesting to hear how it compares to the publishers' marketdroid efforts in terms of sales (if you can tease out the stats).
>
> Now the important question, favourite beer?

Answer (cstross):

> My regular session beer is Deuchars IPA (http://www.caledonianbeer.com/deuchars.htm). It's not an American-style bitterness wars IPA; it's a light, Scottish ale with just enough hops to tell you what it is, and it's weak enough that you can keep drinking it continuously for hours without any risk of waking up in a puddle with KICK ME tattooed on your bum.



Question (cuidadollamas):

> How long did it take you to become comfortable writing in the second person? I finished reading [Rule 34] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_34_(novel)) and it was the first novel i had read.
>
> I'm not counting the choose your own adventure book series since they're not traditional novels in my view.

Answer (cstross):

> It took me about a hundred pages of "Halting State" to get the hang of it, and another hundred pages to feel comfortable. I also needed a reason to start doing it (2nd person is the natural voice of the text adventure game -- "you are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike").
>
> Other writers have done this (Jay MacInery, "Bright Lights, Big City"; also chunks of Christopher Brookmyre's thrillers) but I must be weird or something because I'm doing an entire trilogy this way.



Question (plainsnailing):

> Asimov or Clarke?

Answer (cstross):

> Neither, although I'm marginally less averse to Clarke's style.



Question (vladimir_puta):

> How are your wrists doing?

Answer (cstross):

> When I stop answering questions here you'll know they've blown out.



(continued below)

Cant wait for Ready Player One xD

Weird reading all this considering I just started reading Daniel Suarez's Kill Decision: http://www.amazon.com/Kill-Decision-Daniel-Suarez/dp/0525952616/

>Linda McKinney is a myrmecologist, a scientist who studies the social structure of ants. Her academic career has left her entirely unprepared for the day her sophisticated research is conscripted by unknown forces to help run an unmanned—and thanks to her research, automated—drone army. Odin is the secretive Special Ops soldier with a unique insight into the faceless enemy who has begun to attack the American homeland with drones programmed to seek, identify, and execute targets without human intervention.

I quoted from Altered Carbon. There are two other Kovacs novels: Broken Angels and Woken Furies.

https://www.amazon.com/Broken-Angels-Novel-Takeshi-Kovacs/dp/0345457714

https://www.amazon.com/Woken-Furies-Takeshi-Kovacs-Novel/dp/0345499778

Reminds me of a short e-book by Brandon Sanderson. Legion.

Kong Reborn by Russell Blackford starts out as SF about cloning King Kong, then turns into jungle thriller with dinosaurs.

Thunder of Time by James F. David is a dopey thriller about "time quilts" bringing dinosaurs to the present. I understand it's the sequel to his Footprints of Thunder.

Bones of the Earth by Michael Swanwick is a story of really cool dinosaur time travel adventure.

You might try The Jaguar Hunter collection of stories by Lucius Shepard, although I wouldn't call these thrillers. They're psychological and social. The title story is sort of magical, and a couple others are about future soldiers in Latin America. I'm just trying to think of jungle stories, but I don't suppose these are up your alley.

I take it you've already read Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder" and L. Sprague de Camp's "A Gun for Dinosaur."

Something I want

Something I need

Something to wear

Something to read

Something to watch

Something to listen to

Once upon a time

There was a girl named Kristi

She liked surprises

:) Thanks for the contest ♥

I'm Horrible, but this book is not. Definitely has a touch of the military scifi/psych in it. I thought it was a very cool book!

Thanks so much for the contest!

Ignore the haters regarding Robin Hobb. I enjoyed all 3 books. There were some parts in the 2nd book I had to "just get through" but the conclusion of the 3rd is well worth it, trust me. Great fantasy.

Check out Kelly McCullough, notably his Webmage series!

edit: I highly recommend listening to THIS version of hobbs books.

Some suggestions to consider:

Non-fiction

Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear

The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires

Fiction

Little Brother

Ready Player One

:::

I'll try to buy ye a copy of something in the next day or two.

The Peripheral comes out on the 28th here in the U.S. Gibson's return to hard sci fi/cyberpunk. A few people I know had ARCs and have said it's triumphantly Gibsonian.

Addendum:

To get an ebook copy via Amazon Smile: Here.
To get a hard copy via Amazon Smile: Here.

"How do we know you're not a bamboozler?"

You don't. Aside of being able to say a book exists, link to it, claim I'm the writer, confirm it in the description of the book, and so on, there's nothing I can do to prove I'll donate. But what I can say is that unlike most of the nutters who try that shtick, and as a long time user, I take the following words to heart:

> "One of the things we learned pretty early on is 'Don't ever, ever try to lie to the internet - because they will catch you. They will de-construct your spin. They will remember everything you ever say for eternity." - Gabe Newell.

I like my name. I don't want to be a pariah, doxed and left without kidneys in an alley. If you still can't trust me but you still care, I urge you to go to the EFF's page and directly donate. If you're paranoid of tracking, they take bitcoin.

Public Enemy Zero. Mitchell Roberts discovers that everyone wants him dead, and he doesn't know why. I like it, keeps you on the edge of your seat, and you never know what twist will come up next.

It is a Kindle exclusive, though.

Dr. Max Tegmark, cosmologist and physics professor at MIT

• Permutation City, by Greg Egan (Powells) (Amazon)
  
  Dr. Jane Goodall, Primatologist
  
  
• The Story of Doctor Dolittle, by Hugh Lofting (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• Tarzan of the Apes, by Edgar Rice Burroughs (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• The Miracle of Life (not listed)
  
  Dr. Sean Carroll, Theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology
  
  
• Dragon's Egg, by Robert Forward (Powells) (Amazon)
  
  Dr. Temple Grandin, Animal scientist
  
  
• "I’m a Star trek fan..."
  
  Dr. Seth Shostak, Senior astronomer and director at the Center for SETI Research
  
  
• Golem XIV, by Stanislaw Lem (Powells) (Amazon)
  
  Dr. Chris Stringer, Anthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London
  
  
• Brazil, the movie (YouTube)
  
  Dr. Jack Horner, Paleontologist at Montana State University
  
  
• Jurassic Park, the movie) (IMDB)
  
  Dr. Adam Riess, astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University
  
  
• Contact, by Carl Sagan (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• The Fountains of Paradise, by Arthur C. Clarke (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• Foundation series, by Isaac Asimov (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• The Silo saga, by Hugh Howey (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• The Stand, by Stephen King (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• Watership Down, by Richard Adams (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• The Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham (Powells) (Amazon)
  
  Dr. Steven Strogatz, professor of mathematics at Cornell University
  
  
• The Andromeda Strain, by Michael Chriton (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• Colossus: The Forbin Project, the movie (IMDB)
  
• 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke (Powells) (Amazon)
  
  Dr. Ainissa Ramirez, materials scientist
  
  
• Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler (Powells) (Amazon)
  
  Dr. Mario Livio, astrophysicist at the Space Telescope Science Institute
  
  
• Around the World in Eighty Days, by Jules Verne (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• Journey to the Center of the Earth, by Jules Verne (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, by Jules Verne (Powells) (Amazon)
  
• 2001: A Space Odyssey, the movie (IMDB)
  
• Dr. Strangelove, the movie (IMDB)
  
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the movie (IMDB)
  
  Olympia LePoint, rocket scientist
  
  
• Gravity, 2013 (IMDB)
  
• Back to The Future, 1985 (IMDB)
  
  Dr. Danielle Lee, biologist
  
  
• Dune, 1984 (IMDB)
  
  Dr. Michael Shermer, historian of science
  
  
• The Day the Earth Stood Still, 1951 (IMDB)
  
  Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist
  
  
• The Day the Earth Stood Still, 1951 (IMDB)
  
• 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968 (IMDB)
  
• Planet of the Apes, 1968 (IMDB)
  
• The Terminator, 1984 (IMDB)
  
• The Quiet Earth, 1985 (IMDB)
  
• Contact, 1997 (IMDB)
  
• Deep Impact, 1998 (IMDB)
  
• The Matrix, 1999 (IMDB)
  
• The Island, 2005 (IMDB)
  
• Watchmen, 2009 (IMDB)
  

Have you checked Web Mage by Kelly McCullough?

Wife got me the book Pontypool Changes Everything for Christmas.

Stand On Zanzibar and The Sheep Look Up are two books I've pushed on countless people, including two English professors. Highly underrated science fiction. And for general creepiness, I still have bad dreams about The Land of Laughs.

http://www.amazon.com/WebMage-Ravirn-Book-Kelly-McCullough/dp/0441014259/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1309619091&sr=8-1 It isn't the best written series in the world but it is good and its unique. Science fantasy is an under-explored genre for sure.

See Daemon and more importantly Freedom tm for how the world works with game theory. Read them before they become movies.

Try Harry Connolly's "Twenty Palaces" series. I'd suggest starting with Child of Fire and Game of Cages. Neat magic system and world building. Fair warning, the series is incomplete, but I think the existing books work well as is.

1. A homophone for "whine". Young children can be very whiny. I teach young children and would love to have this turtle puppet for the kids in my class. Puppets are very helpful, particularly when kids are in a "whiny" mood.
   
   
2. Brooms have bristles. So do toothbrushes. I could use a new toothbrush. I mean, do ya'll want to sit in Potions class next to the girl with stinky breath?! Didn't think so.
   
   
3. This rabbit in a hat puppet is not only super cute but a good introduction to transmogrification (I think that's the right word, but classes haven't started yet so how should I know?!)
   
   
4. Books have words and words have power. Pontypool Changes Everything is a book about the power of words and how they change people. BTW, it's PontyPOOL not PONTYpool, Weasley!
   
   
5. These elephant harem pants are not only adorable but will help keep the junk in my trunk nice and toasty in RAoA's big old drafty castle. I'm assuming we're all moving into a castle, right? RIGHT?!
   
   B) Every good superhero needs a specialized weapon. As a budding witch, I would like a sonic screwdriver to aid in my superhero-ish shenanigans. Did I mention this particular screwdriver has a super secret uv pen and uv light so I can write super secret messages to my super secret companions?! If that's not magic, I don't know what is!

I read Seeker which is part of the Alex Benedict Series in Spring 2011. Changed my life forever.
Read it apart of a science fiction English class and despite that I read it out of order from the series, it was fantastic.
The vision of the future portrayed in this novel is what I'd like our future to be.

Books! Yeah, baby! Here are three:

Daemon and
Freedom

by Daniel Suarez. The first was self-published, became a hit, and the second is the recently-released sequel. Excellent near-future SciFi about a tech billionaire who sets up an internet daemon to take over the world, basically, after he dies of cancer. Violent, thought-provoking, and absolutely worth reading. My wife liked them also.

The Unincorporated Man by the Kollin brothers -- also new authors; also very talented. The chapter on the "virtual reality plague" alone is worth the time and price of the book, but the whole thing is very compelling.

[Edit because I can't type more than a sentence w/o a typo]

Mosaic 17K by Christopher Drake definitely fits this description. Near future, dystopian SF. It's the author's first novel and, imo a damned good read. I've read it twice so far. Right now it's free through Kindle Unlimited not sure for how long though.

I see you like Dinosaur Fiction, if you haven't go get a copy of "Bones of the Earth" by Michael Swanwick

Bones of the Earth https://www.amazon.com/dp/0380812894/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_Wge4ybDEBYZW4

Gibson's new book The Peripheral is amazing. It's set in both the future and the future's future which is no longer the future's future once contact is made with the future's future's past. The two futures are connected by a murder mystery with interweaving plots in both times.

That was... The Difference Engine by Gibson and Sterling.

Edit: Alright, could be wrong, since you mentioned a short story. "The Difference Engine" is a full-length novel.

>Do you know of books comparable to The Diamond Age by other authors? I really liked that one.

Shockwave Rider by John Brunner's a pre-cyberpunk cyber-punk novel. Slightly dated but a good read.

I don't mind if some sci-fi seems outdated, I tend to read them only as alternative views of the future or technology. Brunner's other dystopian works are like that, but they are still worthy reading.

Raven intelligence is exploited for fun and profit in Kill Decision, a book about autonomous drones being mass-produced and used against the US.

It's pretty light reading, but if you like the idea of an Indiana Jones style adventure in space (but with a bit more science), I would check out 'Seeker' by Jack McDevitt.

It's a pretty fun and engaging read.

Lnk: http://www.amazon.com/Seeker-Jack-McDevitt/dp/0441013759/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1291709470&sr=8-1

Well, I could be a wag and say The Meditations, since they were written about 40 years later... ;-)

Actually, I'd recommend Steps to an Ecology of Mind (by Gregory Bateson).
That book blew my mind so wide open in so many ways - this was my introduction to cybernetic thinking, in linguistics, biology, psychology, etc.

For science fiction/fantasy:
Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner. The White Deer, by James Thurber. Lord of Light, by Zelazny, absolutely, and Triton, by Samuel R. Delany.

Gilgamesh, for sure (do yourself a favor and read the narrative verse by Herbert Mason, or the poetic rendering by David Ferry. Way more enjoyable than the academic translations, even the John Gardner version, as much as I hate to say it, because I'm a real fan of his, but the Ferry or Mason versions are simply more fun.)
Gilgamesh is the oldest epic, and it has it all - sex, power, death, brotherhood, gods, humanity. Give it a try.

>It's a little below my level

Lol, sorry but that is super hipster sounding. =P

Awe, now you edited it. =P

It's a decent series, not amazing like the Enemies Trilogy. However the Divided we Fall series brings up a LOT of what you guys are talking about.

http://www.amazon.com/Enemies-Foreign-Domestic-Matthew-Bracken/dp/0972831010/ref=la_B00350B7EU_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1453305557&sr=1-1

Ready Player One

What might have been.

> Your last point is interesting, and I do like the idea of using someone's reputation as a gauge for future interaction and trustworthiness. Cory Doctorow's novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom takes place in a society in which one's reputation level is used as both a currency and an indicator of character.

You can thank the original cypherpunks with coming up with the notion. Another useful novels playing with the idea are Daemon/Freedom by Suarez

http://www.amazon.com/Daemon-Daniel-Suarez/dp/B003L1ZXCU/

http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-TM-Daniel-Suarez/dp/0525951571/

> albeit not tamper-proof, that you mentioned without being overtly totalitarian.

It is in principle possible to store information in a distributed cryptographic filesystem in a tamper-proof fashion. A precursor to such practical systems is e.g. Tahoe http://tahoe-lafs.org/~warner/tahoe.html

On the same wavelength, the Ravirn series by Kelly McCullough is about a supernatural coder. Ravirn is a descendant of the Fates, and uses code to accomplish magical effects. Not as low level as Wiz Biz, but not bad, either. WebMage is the first book, and there are currently 4 in the series.

OMG I need to choose just one?? Blergh.

uhm - this one - and used would be totally more than okay if I happened to win.

StarRisk is good fun as long as you arn't looking for deep hidden meanings in your writing, because other than a few story twists it's fairly straightforward. That doesn't make it any less entertaining thou.

The Evergence series is a considerably more sophisticated read and you'll likely get some good milage out of the story on that one. Everything from ascended beings to cyborgs and super soldiers.

The two I was trying to remember are

Seeker: It's an exploration and discovery novel, so not particularly military in approach but interesting.

The Faded Sun Trilogy: This one is a retired military character that ends up in a fish out of water situation. It's admittedly very long and was a tougher read than I had anticipated when I picked it up but I enjoyed it even if I felt a bit burnt out at the end because there's so much going on and the pacing isn't that great since it's actually 3 books in one cover.

If you want to get absolutely insane milage out of a book series try the Otherland series. It's not a space opera but it's a heavy duty sci-fi regardless. For hard space sci-fi the Culture series is also really incredible and should probably be at the top of this list not the bottom.

Obligatory: http://www.amazon.com/Kill-Decision-Daniel-Suarez/dp/0525952616/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368031436&sr=8-1&keywords=kill+decision

That's part of the title

The Peripheral by Gibson.

FYI, there is a semi-sequel that just came out a few days ago: http://www.amazon.com/The-Rapture-Nerds-singularity-posthumanity/dp/0765329107 It was a joint effort between Stross and Cory Doctorow (who bears a strange resemblance to Macx)