[geeks] Good computer fiction books

[Phil Stracchino]

On 11/05/12 18:03, Brian Dunbar wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 4:50 PM, Jonathan Patschke <jp at celestrion.net> wrote:
>> On Sat, 3 Nov 2012, Nicolai wrote:
>>
>>> What/who are some of your favorite computer-centric fiction books and
>>> authors?  Not ordinary sci-fi (lots of great book lists there already),
>>> but overtly computer-oriented books like Snow Crash or other Neal
>>> Stephenson books.
>>
>>
>> It's a little dated, but Winn Schwartau's Terminal Compromise stuck out as
>> being rather good when I read it in the late 1990s.
> 
> Vinge's 'Deepness in the Sky' isn't computer-centric, but computers
> are such a part _of_ any space-faring culture they're as necessary to
> survival as water and air.

Actually, one could argue the case for at least half of Iain M. Banks'
Culture novels, particularly _Excession_, _Look to Windward_, and
_Surface Detail_, in all three of which major characters are
artificially-hyperintelligent[1] starship minds.  (As a matter of fact,
in _Excession_, the actual *biological* characters are in the minority.)



[1]  'Artificial intelligence' just doesn't seem ... *sufficient* to
describe a GSV Mind.  I'm not entirely certain that even 'artificial
hyperintelligence' is.


-- 
  Phil Stracchino, CDK#2     DoD#299792458     ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
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