Scratch Monkey is Charles Stross' first novel, that by a series of miscommunications, wound up unpublished. its been published on his website under a creative commons license.
Its not a bad little book. The blurb text that PBS has for it sums things up wonderfully, but leaves out the Ultrabrights - the super AIs that surpass the Superbrights as they surpass us. And they're hostile...
This book also has a lot of material you see in Charlie's later books: AIs with better models of human behavior than humans themselves have; The implications of replicators and teleporters; desperate struggles against post human things. And more, but those are the ones that stood out to me the most.
Oshi is interesting - as broken as Tara Chace from Queen and Country, and just as dangerous. Plus, she has access to load of kit that would make most ultra tech soldiers and spies jealous. She's also sympathetic between her origins and the horrible situations she's thrust into.
Its a good book.
Common Misconceptions About Publishing is a reprint of material from Charlie's blog of the same name. Something worth reading and pondering for would be authors.
Likes: The set up and worldbuilding; War of the Superbrights and Ultrabrights; Dreamtime; How hostile and alien the AIs are; Oshi and her band of desperate pathfinders; seeing the beginnings of things.
Dislikes: The horrible things that happened to Oshi on New Salazar and Miramor Dubrovnic.
Suggested For: Fans of Charles Stross and fairly hard science fiction.
Its not a bad little book. The blurb text that PBS has for it sums things up wonderfully, but leaves out the Ultrabrights - the super AIs that surpass the Superbrights as they surpass us. And they're hostile...
This book also has a lot of material you see in Charlie's later books: AIs with better models of human behavior than humans themselves have; The implications of replicators and teleporters; desperate struggles against post human things. And more, but those are the ones that stood out to me the most.
Oshi is interesting - as broken as Tara Chace from Queen and Country, and just as dangerous. Plus, she has access to load of kit that would make most ultra tech soldiers and spies jealous. She's also sympathetic between her origins and the horrible situations she's thrust into.
Its a good book.
Common Misconceptions About Publishing is a reprint of material from Charlie's blog of the same name. Something worth reading and pondering for would be authors.
Likes: The set up and worldbuilding; War of the Superbrights and Ultrabrights; Dreamtime; How hostile and alien the AIs are; Oshi and her band of desperate pathfinders; seeing the beginnings of things.
Dislikes: The horrible things that happened to Oshi on New Salazar and Miramor Dubrovnic.
Suggested For: Fans of Charles Stross and fairly hard science fiction.
