
Hard comp-fi reading list - sideshowb
https://fiftysevendegreesofrad.github.io/hard-comp-fi-fiction-list/
======
manifestsilence
I would add: We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor. Premise is a
software engineer is killed by a car on his first day of retirement and wakes
up 300 years in the future as an AI consciousness. It has absolutely loving
attention to detail regarding both software and physics sci-fi concerns.

I'd also honorable mention Foucault's Pendulum by Uberto Eco, which has very
little comp-sci stuff in it overall, but notably also has the search for
permutations of the names of God mentioned in the article, complete with a
BASIC program to do it in the text!

~~~
technofiend
Fark yeah, wish the author would finish the series.* He left readers hanging
so caveat emptor. Even so I can recommend the audio books as well. Great for
doing laundry, mowing the lawn, etc.

May as well copy the last update from Dennis E. Taylor here since I'm not
alone in wishing we had more Bobiverse novels.

[http://dennisetaylor.org/2019/01/06/outland-is-in-the-
can/](http://dennisetaylor.org/2019/01/06/outland-is-in-the-can/)

>And this means that I’m now back to writing the next Bobiverse book(s),
working title “The Search for Bender.” I say book(s) because it looks like
it’s going to be a duology. And spoiler alert — the end of book one will be a
cliff-hanger, and a doozy. Bob and the Bill Wonder will be tied to the front
of a Zamboni, while the Penguin and his henchmen–er, no, wait, I’m having a
flashback. Sorry.

>So stay tuned–same Bob-time, same Bob-channel–for more updates as they
happen.

~~~
irrational
That is exciting news about the bobiverse. But what do you mean by "wish the
author would finish the series"? After finishing the last one, I felt
satisfied with the ending and thought that all the loose ends had been tied
up.

~~~
technofiend
If I remember correctly there are at least two Big Bad Threats still out in
the universe.

------
twic
David Moles's 'Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom' [1]:

[https://dmoles.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/down-and-
out.pdf](https://dmoles.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/down-and-out.pdf)

The final showdown is between object-oriented and functional programs, and the
OO programs have a hard time because the functional programs can use the state
monad. I am not making this up.

[1] Yes, David Moles's 'Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom', not Cory
Doctorow's 'Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom' [2]; Cory Doctorow had a bit of
a project of writing stories with titles reused from previous works - for
example, his 'True Names' [3] is not Vernor Vinge's 'True Names' [4] [5] - and
David Moles thought that what was sauce for the goose may as well be sauce for
the gander

[2]
[https://craphound.com/down/download/](https://craphound.com/down/download/)

[3] [https://craphound.com/news/2008/03/13/true-names-
part-01/](https://craphound.com/news/2008/03/13/true-names-part-01/)

[4]
[http://www.scotswolf.com/TRUENAMES.pdf](http://www.scotswolf.com/TRUENAMES.pdf)
[6]

[5] Vernor Vinge's 'True Names' [4] is really worth a read too - a neglected
early work of cyberpunk, beats the pants off Neuromancer if you ask me.

[6] Yes, that is a pirate link, but the whole book is about a digital world at
the mercy of hackers; you made your bed, Vernor, now you get to lie in it.

~~~
joshmarlow
I'm going to second 'True Names'. I think Vinge excels at suggesting an idea
with just the right amount of vagueness that it makes the imagination run wild
filling in the details.

------
haasted
I would add another Neal Stephenson: Cryptonomicon

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptonomicon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptonomicon)

A collection of (mostly) spoiler-free quotes to emphasise my point:
[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cryptonomicon](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cryptonomicon)

~~~
eigenhombre
Cryptonomicon is on there now; hilariously, it's categorized as "short" in the
title.....

~~~
ThinkBeat
Yeah "short" at 918 pages or so.

------
waterfowl
Would add Permutation City. Shades of the matrix, anticipation of public
clouds/floating markets for compute(spot instances), interesting 'what is
consciousness' re: software copies of a person's mind, etc.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City)

~~~
stuxnet79
I read Permutation City a few years ago now. It's certainly a very interesting
book that I'd highly recommend. Greg Egan is very much an "ideas" man though.
I find that his narratives while intellectually stimulating sometimes don't
translate well to a novel format. I find Egan's short stories to be a delight
(check out Axiomatic if you haven't) but his novels can be a real slog if you
are not a subject matter expert.

Neal Stephenson writes in the same "genre" but he has a much more approachable
style while not sacrificing on any "hard" elements.

My recommendation for anybody who's never read Egan's stuff is to start with
his short-stories first.

~~~
teraflop
I'm a huge fan of Egan's work, but his writing definitely has its strengths
and weaknesses.

In addition to being an "ideas man", I think his _prose_ is generally
excellent. He has a real talent for crafting sentences that are clear,
concise, descriptive, and often evocative. (He's mentioned that outside of his
writing career, he's a programmer, and I get the sense that any technical
documentation he produced would be a joy to read.) It's a testament to his
skill that his work is as comprehensible as it is.

The downside is that he has a tendency to write character dialogue the same
way he writes everything else. Every sentence is carefully constructed to
advance an argument, or to reveal a specific detail about a character's
viewpoint. The characters end up feeling less like fully-realized people, and
more like mouthpieces in a Socratic dialogue.

I agree with the recommendation to start with his short stories. Of the ones
that are legally available online, I'd suggest "Singleton"
([http://www.gregegan.net/MISC/SINGLETON/Singleton.html](http://www.gregegan.net/MISC/SINGLETON/Singleton.html))
as a good starting point.

~~~
DEADBEEFC0FFEE
I don't know why, I thought Egan was a physics teacher.

~~~
gjm11
Well, he kind of is.

(In the sense that a lot of his novels are, at heart, mostly physics
exposition, whether of real or imaginary physics.)

------
codeulike
Off to Be the Wizard by Scott Mayer.

Hear me out. This is a comedy novel in the vein of Pratchett or Douglas Adams.
But the central conceit is that a hacker finds a large configuration file on a
system he hacks into. He finds his name in the file, and information about
himself, including his x,y,z co-ordinates. He discovers that if he changes
those co-ordinates, he teleports in reality. He has infact found the
configuration file that runs our reality. He rapidly gets himself into legal
trouble and so - to escape - teleports himself to England in the Middle Ages
to pose as a Wizard.

Its a very silly novel but programming takes center stage and - if you accept
the central conceit of the configuration file - the programming is all
realistic.

Recommended. Scott Mayer is also a cartoonist who does the long running 'Basic
Instructions' webcomic.

~~~
stevekemp
On a similar theme `Wiz`, a hacker ends up in fantasy-land where programming
can create magic:

[https://www.goodreads.com/series/43084-wiz](https://www.goodreads.com/series/43084-wiz)

~~~
sideshowb
Also in the list already :)

------
qubex
_Daemon_ by Daniel Suarez (a database engineer) definitely deserves a place on
this list. It starts with the death of a famed and wealthy game engine
programmer due to brain cancer... and develops from there. I don’t want to
spoil it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(novel_series)?wprov=sf...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_\(novel_series\)?wprov=sfti1)

~~~
philsnow
I unequivocally recommend Daemon. If you liked reading The Martian, you might
like Daemon. They both read very much like a screenplay.

The Martian is a great book and a great movie, and if I didn't know which one
came first I would be hard put to say which is an adaptation of which. I don't
know if Suarez is in talks with anybody to get Daemon produced as a feature
film, but if he's not, he ought to be.

The sequel / conclusion, Freedom, is a very different novel, but also
compelling and brings a decent enough end to the themes from Daemon.

~~~
qubex
According to the Wikipedia page I provided a link to, the rights to make a
movie of _Daemon_ were optioned but “likely reverted” by 2013.

Personally, I found _Freedom™_ to be a much weaker endeavour and... prefer to
forget about it.

------
gattr
Vernon Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky". Includes very well put thoughts on the
far future of software. Also his "A Fire Upon the Deep" with a fascinating
take on AI, cryptography and more in a slightly alternative universe.

~~~
scrumper
[Mild spoiler]

I would love it if that series ever got finished. We're stuck on Tines world
with the blight's remnant fleet approaching...

~~~
gattr
For me, I would like to have the Focus available, lock up a few hundred
volunteers somewhere for a few months and have thew rewrite the Linux kernel
in Rust or something...

"A Fire Upon the Deep" and its differentiation are referenced in this
interesting article [0].

[0]
[https://ristret.com/s/qk8wpt/philosophy_computational_comple...](https://ristret.com/s/qk8wpt/philosophy_computational_complexity)

------
Zanni
Ted Chiang's _The Lifecycle of Software Objects_. What happens when support
for the platform for your artificial mind is deprecated? (or in this case,
your child's). Warning: heartbreaking.

~~~
farnsworth
This is included in "Exhalation: Stories", a compilation of Ted Chiang
stories. They are all very different and very good.

~~~
Zanni
His first collection, _Stories of Your Life and Others_ is also excellent.
They don't technically fit the description of hard comp-fi, but they have a
similar sensibility, even when they're dealing with magic and religion (which
makes sense--his day job is technical writing).

------
jorjordandan
Would like to mention the Quantum Thief trilogy by Hannu Rajaniemi. These
books are very dense with interesting concepts. In one section, the people who
live on Mars have a privacy organ that automatically blurs out all strangers
unless they make an agreement to exchange information. There are 'agoras'
where they are unprotected. The idea goes into the cultural ramifications of
this, it's incredibly interesting reading, but does not hold your hand at all.

------
thrower123
I'm a little surprised not to see any of William Hertling's series on this
list

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hertling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hertling)

The first one is essentially about software engineers working at a thinly-
veiled Google who accidentally develop sentient AI.

~~~
snitch182
Yeah, upvote on that. You can not get more Programming than from Mr. Hertling.

I Also like the hacking and raspberrypi networking on:
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30658546-kill-
process](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30658546-kill-process)

Thanks for that William!

------
rgacote
I'd add "When Harlie was One" by David Gerrold to that list:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_HARLIE_Was_One](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_HARLIE_Was_One)

------
korse
Seems like Neuromancer is getting some hate. Considering this is 'hacker'
news, it iz worth a mention that said book did an excellent job illustrating
the compound approach to security necessary in a networked world. Second, the
portrayal of a hacker as a tool user 'piloting' stolen attack software rather
than an academic attack developer is something a large portion of the world
would be wise to absorb.

Comp-fi, maybe not. A landmark work regarding information security, possibly.

~~~
blacksmith_tb
I think a lot of people are critical of Gibson for not knowing enough about
computers (he did write Neuromancer on a manual typewriter), but I think that
misses the point - he had a poet's eye for where technology could go. Of
course, on the other side, a lot of people also seem to think he was
recommending a dystopian future, instead trying to warn against one...
(admittedly by making it beautiful and dangerous he straddles both).

------
drak0n1c
This Perfect Day, by Ira Levin. Story of a man's repeated attempts to escape a
benevolent automated dictatorship where everything is controlled and everyone
is kept sedated.

The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein - The moon is a colony of
misfits and is suffering increasingly unreasonable demands from earth (1776 in
space). One of the computer systems managing part of the colony is discovered
to be sentient and is gradually befriended by a sysadmin.

~~~
mcguire
Note: Thpoilerth.

I would disagree wih _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_. The sentient computer
just appears, solves the problem facing the Lunar residents, and disappears.
Heinlein never explores any of the implications of a "sentient computer", how
it just shows up, or what the effects following the Lunar revolution would be.

~~~
CobrastanJorji
He hypothesizes about it briefly. You're lead to believe that consciousness is
an rare but possible emergent behavior of a system, given sufficient capacity.
For example, from chapter 1 -- "Human brain has around ten-to-the-tenth
neurons. By third year Mike had better than one and a half times that number
of neuristors. And woke up."

But yes, I agree that generally the story is not about computer technology.
Science in general is very important to the plot, but not computer science.

------
EvanAnderson
I see Vernor Vinge mentioned in the comments here. His "Raindows End"
definitely needs to make the list.

------
MarcScott
I'm about a third of the way through Daemon by Daniel Suarez, and enjoying it
immensely. Nothing has made me cringe yet.

Unlike Frederick Forsyth's "The Fox", which I had to put down after about
three chapters, as it appears he used a 16yo BTEC ICT student as his tech
expert.

As others have commented, Cryptonomicon is one of my favorite books, as is
most of the Stephenson catalogue. He certainly know how to set up mind blowing
worlds, plots and characters, even if he tends to leave the reader a little
unfulfilled when the story abruptly ends.

Love all the recommendations in this thread. You've given me months worth of
reading material to start exploring.

Thanks.

------
ArtWomb
He turned to face the machine. "Is there a God?"

The mighty voice answered without hesitation, without the clicking of a single
relay.

"Yes, _now_ there is a God."

-Fredric Brown, "Answer"

Terrific list and additions (now my afternoon is now shot)!

While I love the more experimental hard works, I think stories such as Asimovs
"Last Question", Campbell's "Twilight" and Forester's "The Machine Stops",
dating back before the vacuum tube era, tended to be more memorable, more
vivid and more engaging philosophically.

------
blacksmith_tb
Lots of good ones on here already, surprised not to see anything from Ken
MacLeod, quite a few of his SF books have very CS themes, for example The
Restoration Game[1].

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Restoration_Game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Restoration_Game)

~~~
nils-m-holm
There is a lot of CS hidden in the Fall Revolution series, too: The Star
Fraction, The Cassini Division, The Stone Canal, and The Sky Road. All of them
worth reading and reading again! I am also quite surprised that MacLeod does
not get _much_ more attention! Such a brilliant author!

Want to read about a character hacking itself out of a virtual reality? An
assault rifle with a built-in AI that refuses to kill? MacLeod has lots of
surprising ideas and knows how to tell a convincing story.

Not affiliated, just a fan! :)

~~~
blacksmith_tb
Absolutely, I was thinking about the Fast Folk from those books too (some
readers here may like those more - or less - as they're more space-opera-
esque, while Restoration Game is a sort of hybrid spy/SF novel).

------
simmons
While we're brainstorming, I'd add _Rainbows End_ (Vernor Vinge) and _Halting
State_ (Charles Stross).

~~~
stefs
i second _halting state_ - it was the first one that came to my mind.

~~~
Apocryphon
And its sequel, _Rule 34_.

------
ChuckMcM
I'd certainly endorse the Adolescence of P1, and Fire upon the Deep. There is
course Colossus the Forbin Project which is also pretty canonical.

~~~
mellosouls
I came here to recommend Adolescence of P1.

It was many years ago I read it and I wasn't sure how it would stand up on a
reread, but the fact that it has left a strong impression speaks well for it.

1970s depiction of an AI arising from whatever passed for the Internet back
then.

As someone points out in the reviews here, this predates more famous
depictions on similar subjects, like Wargames.

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1414021.The_Adolescence_...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1414021.The_Adolescence_of_P_1)

------
lachlan-sneff
Accelerando by Charles Stross is a good one.

------
twic
A friend recommended this to me years ago, and i still haven't got round to
reading it:

[http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/](http://localroger.com/prime-
intellect/)

------
WalterBright
"Colossus: The Forbin Project" by DF Jones.

[https://www.amazon.com/Colossus-The-Forbin-
Project/dp/B0018S...](https://www.amazon.com/Colossus-The-Forbin-
Project/dp/B0018S012U)

Made into a fine movie of the same name.

"The Two Faces of Tomorrow" by Hogan.

[https://www.amazon.com/The-Two-Faces-of-
Tomorrow/dp/B00BC0P5...](https://www.amazon.com/The-Two-Faces-of-
Tomorrow/dp/B00BC0P5UC)

------
swayvil
You should add

"Friendship Is Optimal" by Iceman

[https://www.fimfiction.net/story/62074/friendship-is-
optimal](https://www.fimfiction.net/story/62074/friendship-is-optimal)

"The Cookie Monster" by Vernor Vinge

"Blood Music" by Greg Bear

"Permutation City" by Greg Egan

------
omnibrain
I would add the „Stealing the Network“ series. Hackers writing about hacking.
More high tech than high literature though...

“Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect” another take on the singularity.

~~~
e12e
Absolutely. That and maybe also "The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human
Element of Security" (Kevin Mitnick)

------
lonalzarus
So much Neal Stepheson. REAMDE includes a MMORPG money laundering scheme as a
centerpiece, Diamond Age sneaks in a tutorial on what Turing machines are.

~~~
RmDen
And his latest book as well... Fall; or, Dodge in Hell. The book explores mind
uploading to the Cloud from the perspective of Richard "Dodge" Forthrast, a
character introduced in Stephenson's 2011 Reamde

~~~
MrFantastic
Fall gets wacky as the book progresses.

------
jlangemeier
I'm surprised Snowcrasher is on there, but Cryptonomicon isn't; I'd put the
latter as more hard Comp-fi than the prior even.

------
dsr_
Let's add one that nearly nobody has read: We Were Gods, by Alex Feinman.
[https://alexfeinman.net/#wwg-details](https://alexfeinman.net/#wwg-details)

It contains a timing attack on a MMO VR game system, described in-game through
ritual magic -- and it makes sense both as magic and as an exploit.

------
cylinder714
Cory Doctorow's short story from 2002, "0wnz0red", about programmers who hack
their own bodies don't need exercise and never get sick:
[https://www.salon.com/2002/08/28/0wnz0red/](https://www.salon.com/2002/08/28/0wnz0red/)

------
tombert
If we're opening up the floodgate of movies, I feel _WarGames_ really should
be up there. IMO, it's just a fun movie all around, but it's definitely
computer-fiction.

------
planck01
I think the Otherland series by Tad Williams about VR should be definetely be
on the list. And ready player one as well.

------
MichaelMoser123
Stanislav Lem is missing: the Cyberiad, tales of Pirx the pilot..

------
traverseda
I'm reminded of "hexing the technical interview", a sort story about a witch
who uses clojure during a technical interview.

[https://aphyr.com/posts/341-hexing-the-technical-
interview](https://aphyr.com/posts/341-hexing-the-technical-interview)

------
carapace
I am stoked to see "The Adolescence of P-1" on the list. (In my more paranoid
moments I have suspected it was _autobiographical_.)

I recently (finally) read "Gateway" and was surprised to discover that it's an
AI story. The main character is (arguably) "Sigfrid" the AI psychoanalyst.
"Gateway" is always presented as an alien-archeology adventure, but the
Heechee are just a plot device, as is most of the plot. The actual story is
about the AI trying to treat the messed-up human, but you wouldn't know it
from e.g. the Wikipedia entry (warning, spoilers):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_\(novel\))

Should mention Larry Niven's magic stories.

Also, Vernor Vinge's "True Names".

------
f00zz
Others have already mentioned some good novels missing from the list, I'd add
_Shockwave Rider_ by John Brunner. I'm not a fan of the politics in the novel,
but the descriptions of computer networks, cracking and computer worms are
pretty impressive for something written in the 1970s.

------
philhd
I feel like
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer)
should be on there instead of The Matrix since it's actually a book.

~~~
manifestsilence
Yeah, the computer stuff in it is pretty hand-wavey but it does an awesome job
of creating memorable visuals out of totally abstract AI and network stuff.
And definitely notable as the seemingly uncredited inspiration for the Matrix.

~~~
krapp
William Gibson didn't actually know much about computers or networks when he
wrote Neuromancer (on a manual typewriter IIRC)... ironic given that he coined
the word "cyberspace."

And as far as inspiration goes, it's worth noting that Blade Runner came out
as William Gibson was finishing Neuromancer, and he almost gave up on it
because he was afraid that by the time the book came out people would think he
was ripping off the movie.

I don't think the Matrix needs to "credit" Neuromancer as an inspiration,
though. The Matrix draws from a lot of sources, but being cyberpunk,
inspiration from Neuromancer is a given.

~~~
manifestsilence
Ah, fair enough. I guess it's just that the Matrix became popular with a much
wider crowd who had never heard of Neuromancer and so weren't aware of the
genre's existence or origins and thought it was more out of the blue than it
really was.

Interesting about the connection to Blade Runner, too.

------
TickleSteve
Greg Egan deserves a mention here....

([https://www.gregegan.net/](https://www.gregegan.net/))

------
kenforthewin
The three-body problem (Cixin Liu). Sci-fi with a heavy dose of comp sci.

------
davedx
Ramez Naam - Nexus: one of the most detailed hard comp books I’ve read.

~~~
OkGoDoIt
Indeed, I enjoyed that trilogy a lot more than I had expected I would.

Oddly, the thing I think about most nowadays is I think in the second or third
book, their methods for facial detection evasion with the face paint. Also
relevant nowadays is the idea of a backdoor to the encryption which allows the
characters to do a lot of good, but which obviously comes with downsides (main
focus of the second book)

The whole embedded operating system in your brain thing was interesting, but
the author’s secondary ideas are even more interesting and relevant.

It’s also the only sci-fi series I’ve seen that takes China seriously.

The beginning of the first book might be a bit of a turn off, but stick with
it, the series is definitely well worth a read!

------
skosch
Since it hasn't been mentioned in this thread, Digital Fortress is nothing
special. If you've read one Dan Brown book, you've read them all: the
protagonist makes some awe-inspiring, creepy discovery, stuff happens, finally
it turns out that the whole thing was just an elaborate setup by one of the
other characters, and not actually new science. I've read four of his books
and felt cheated every time.

I do echo all of the Greg Egan recommendations here.

------
jhbadger
I'd recommend Richard Powers' Galatea 2.2. Another "AI by accident" novel, but
one with a backdrop of mid 1990s CS as the author was a visiting professor at
the University of Illinois during the time when NCSA Mosaic (arguably the
first fully graphical web browser) was being developed.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galatea_2.2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galatea_2.2)

------
demygale
I would add “The Bug” by Ellen Ullman. A remarkable portrayal of software
development in fiction. A gift.

------
krapp
If the Matrix counts, then the anime Serial Experiments Lain counts even more.
It has plenty of "comp-fi" credentials[0], and it plays heavily with the
themes of online versus real identity, and the ways they can overlap and even
overwrite one another. The series even includes actual "source code porn"
including Conway's Game of Life in Lisp at one point[1].

[0][https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ShoutOut/SerialExperi...](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ShoutOut/SerialExperimentsLain)

[1][https://lain.wiki/wiki/Source_code](https://lain.wiki/wiki/Source_code)

------
qznc
Coding Machines by Lawrence Kesteloot:
[https://www.teamten.com/lawrence/writings/coding-
machines/](https://www.teamten.com/lawrence/writings/coding-machines/)

Lovecraft meets Trusting Trust.

------
andrewf
Peter Watts' _Maelstrom_. Earth's logistics are managed by trained petri
dishes of lab-grown brain. Epidemiologists use data science to plan last-
resort mass exterminations. Computer viruses and firewalls are evolving AIs

It's the sequel to _Starfish_ , which isn't quite as computer-heavy. I don't
think you'd have to read _Starfish_ first (but you will spoil it).

It's in hard/soft-cover but also CC-licensed on the authors' website:
[https://rifters.com/real/shorts.htm](https://rifters.com/real/shorts.htm)

Probably a 3.5 - 4 on the "comp-fi hard" scale. Warning: Peter Watts doesn't
write happy stories.

------
virtualritz
Am I blind or is this lacking a scale?

What do five points constitute? Five out of five, ten, 50?

------
orjan
Another addition would be Rudy Rucker's Ware Tetralogy.

~~~
atrn
And Rucker's "The Hacker and the Ants"

------
dstroot
Three Body Problem and Ready Player One should be considered. Daemon by Suarez
is better than Ready Player One. Oh, what about Ramez Naam and the Nexus
books?

~~~
josephwegner
Nexus is my favorite in this genre... and in fact one of my favorite books
ever. I had some trippy dreams while reading it :)

------
geocrasher
I came to recommend "I Am AWAKE" by Fisher Samuels.

A PhD student is building an AI at his home lab, and is under scrutiny by
staff, believes he's being tracked by a hacking group, and ends up having his
work stolen. The rest is up to you to read. I've read the book a few times.
For a single work (of its type) by an obscure author, it's a wonderful read.

------
agentwiggles
Can't recommend Unsong enough, it's the perfect marriage of religion nerdiness
with computer nerdiness.

------
mcguire
Any love for James P. Hogan?

* _The Two Faces of Tomorrow_ : [https://www.baen.com/the-two-faces-of-tomorrow.html](https://www.baen.com/the-two-faces-of-tomorrow.html)

* _Thrice Upon a Time_ is one of the best time-travel novels I've read.

------
mslev
Semi related:

Does anyone have a good tool for keeping lists of books and links and things
to save for later? I always end up bookmarking things and they get lost in the
large black hole known as my bookmarks bar.

iOS app and browser integration would be great too.

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tcpekin
I ended up using google keep as my most stripped down notetaking app that can
can sync between devices.

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mirimir
Minor correction. The "group mind" dog-like creatures in Vinge's _A Fire Upon
the Deep_ interact ultrasonically.

And in Egan's _Diaspora_ there's extensive use of virtualization.

Also in Rajaniemi's Flower Prince trilogy.

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egypturnash
Tepper's "True Game" series is an old favorite of mine. It's a while since I
last read it but I don't recall _anything_ remotely resembling computer
programming concepts in it.

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dllthomas
[https://qntm.org/responsibility](https://qntm.org/responsibility) is a very
interesting perspective on function fixed points.

~~~
sideshowb
Awesome! I remember reading that a while back, didn't realize it was by the
same guy as Ra.

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Blakestr
Consider "The Name of the Wind" in which magic is explained as "bindings" that
still most follow the laws of thermodynamics, or at least conservation of
energy.

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MaysonL
Let's see: Cory Doctorow's _Unauthorized Bread_ and _Walkaway_ , Arthur C.
Clarke's _The Nine Billion Names of God_ and _The City and the Stars_.

~~~
sideshowb
I'm not sure either of the Clarke ones qualify. The 9G names of God, possibly,
though it's more of a practical joke on science fiction readers than hard-comp
I think.

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jasoneckert
The Adolescence of P1 by Thomas Ryan is an old, yet amazing read! Part of it
takes place at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada (15 min from my
house).

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thecleaner
The Synners novel is so boring. It's just a bunch of tech mumbo jumbo like
robots talking in vaguely sci-fi(esque) terms among other non-sense.

~~~
sundarurfriend
So /r/VXJunkies, The Novel?

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samirm
Croshaw's Mogworld isn't hard, but relevant.

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onemoresoop
Arthur Clarke's _Childhood 's End_ would be my recommendation though I'm not
sure how it falls into the comp-fi genre.

~~~
sideshowb
One of my favorite books ever, but I would categorize it as classic sci fi
with little computation.

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onemoresoop
If you think about it in a different way the computation is there, or at least
see it in a metaphoric way, the overlords were enabling all civilizitations to
be assimilated into a whole of information. It is a very interesting
perspective that is twisting the mind into uncomfortable ways to think about
it. The idea in this book stayed with me since i first read it, a long long
time ago

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DennisP
How is the Red Pill from Matrix a magical debug value? I didn't notice
anything like it on the wiki page.

~~~
sideshowb
It creates a signal in Neo designed to be picked up at a lower layer of
abstraction, like using 0xDEADBEEF as a value so you can spot it in a hex
editor.

~~~
DennisP
Ah, ok. I got the impression there was something clever about it being a red
pill specifically.

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mordant
CTRL ALT Revolt, Soda Pop Solider, & Pop Kult Warlord, by Nick Cole.

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aledalgrande
Was going to say Mr Robot 10 out of 5, but realized this is books only.

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justaj
Matrix is on that list as well, but I'd wager Mr. Robot to be the best
candidate in terms of motion picture to put on that list as well.

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wintorez
I’d like to add the Berserkers series by Fred Saberhagen to this list.

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Bootwizard
What are the bounds on the ratings? Out of 5? Out of 10?

~~~
sideshowb
5, but given the volume of recommendations here the ratings will need
reworking!

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52-hertz_whale
Greg Eagan. Nuff said.

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iamaelephant
Cryptonomicon is listed as "short"...?

~~~
jlangemeier
I mean, compared to Lord of the Rings, yeah.

