[ExI] Look to Windward--Banks

[Ben Zaiboc]

> From: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
> 
> The three SF authors who write the most about the
> singularity and post
> singularity are Vernor Vinge, Charles Stross and Ian M.
> Banks.  I am
> in the middle of re reading _Look to Windward_ (2000) and
> was struck
> by how much of the book was closely related to recent
> discussions on
> this list.
> 
> "The Culture" in Bank's universe is a galaxy wide society
> with
> nanotechnology.  It has stabilized beyond the
> construction of AIs but
> remains for the most part in the physical world.
> 
> But Banks is keenly aware of the instability of such a
> state of development.
> 
> If you have not read it recently, you can go to Amazon and
> search
> inside the book for "sublime."
> 
> Vinge's _Marooned in Realtime_ (1986) is also relevant to
> the recent
> discussions.
> 
> Singularity SF is really hard to write.  Everybody who
> does so knows
> they have to cheat or they have no characters the reader
> can identify
> with.


The Minds (AIs) in the Culture deliberately hold back from a singularity (equated with 'sublimation'), for reasons never explained.  So these novels are really 'pre-singularity' stories.  Whether or not a stable society like the one described would be even possible is arguable, but they are damned good stories.  I rather liked the sub-plot in one book (I forget which) in which a character's mind is suspended for an unknown amount of time, and when he awakens he's in a place/time where nobody has even heard of the Culture, or anything like it.  This made me wonder:  Is it possible to be so far in the future that it wouldn't be possible to work out how far, even in principle?  All the constellations and stars had changed so much you have nothing to go on?  Or would there always be something you could rely on, some kind of cosmic carbon-dating, maybe?

Another author I can recommend is Neal Asher.  His stories contain some very interesting ideas, and like Iain M Banks, for the most part he stays on this side of the singularity, but does give a glimpse of a possible hazard lying in wait for a civilisation that crosses the event horizon (at least that's my interpretation of Jain Tech.).

Ben Zaiboc