C
Charlie Stross
antipope.org · Personal blog · on HN since 2007
Charlie Stross, a science fiction author, blogs about publishing, the future of technology, politics, and space.
What HN saysHN links it in discussions of his novel Accelerando and his essays, with commenters praising ideas like our world being closer to fantasy than sci-fi.
478HN people shared it
314linked it in comments
479stories submitted
19Kstory points
3 months agolast shared
2007people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Accelerando55 people · 6 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
- 2Accelerando (2005)28 people · 198 points · first shared 2010 · 115 comments on HN
- 3Dude, you broke the future21 people · 546 points · first shared 2018 · 142 comments on HN
- 4Why we are unlikely to ever leave the solar system.20 people · 308 points · first shared 2007 · 179 comments on HN
- 5Common misconceptions about publishing (2010)16 people · 1 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
- 6Fossil Fuels Are Dead14 people · 69 points · first shared 2021 · 21 comments on HN
- 7Invaders from Mars14 people · 26 points · first shared 2010 · 2 comments on HN
- 8Why I want Bitcoin to die in a fire13 people · 440 points · first shared 2013 · 402 comments on HN
- 9Big Brother Iron11 people · 11 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 10We're sorry we created the Torment Nexus (2023)10 people · 7 points · first shared 2023 · 2 comments on HN
- 11Why Microsoft Word must die9 people · 443 points · first shared 2013 · 372 comments on HN
- 12Artificial Intelligence: Threat or Menace?9 people · 12 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 13"Nothing like this will be built again"8 people · 1.0K points · first shared 2011 · 260 comments on HN
- 14What Amazon's ebook strategy really means8 people · 122 points · first shared 2012 · 72 comments on HN
- 15Political failure modes and the beige dictatorship8 people · 87 points · first shared 2013 · 56 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
sxp · 2026-08-01
I'm not going to share because https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accel… has a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License. But I've paid for my copy of the book so I can do what I want with it.
If you want to build your own, you can feed this DESIGN.md to your favorite clankie: https://pastebin.com/huRkGnba
aspenmayer · 2026-03-14
Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge and Accelerando by Charles Stross both have a lot of parallels with current AI and Internet developments, and are great books to boot. Accelerando has free ebook versions available, which I am happy to share, thanks to the author and publisher. I can’t recommend cstross highly enough. Vinge needs no introduction, though the work mentioned is somewhat less well known and later than his more renowned works.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbows_End_(Vinge_novel)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerando
https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accel…
GolfPopper · 2025-06-04
>And has written a lot about how corporations are in fact evil AI running on the operating system of the government.
I would say his view of them is more Lovecraftian than "evil", but here's the speech (as a blog entry): https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2018/01/dude-you-broke-th…
mandevil · 2025-02-15
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/10/not-a-manifesto.ht…
This blog has a brilliant insight that I still remember more than a decade later: we live in a fantasy setting, not a Sci-fi one. Our modern computers are so unfathomable complex that they are demons, ancient magic that can be tamed and barely manipulated, but not engineered. Modern computing isn't Star Trek TNG, where Captain Picard and Geordi LaForge each have every layer of their starship in their heads with full understanding, and they can manipulate each layer independently. We live in a world where the simple cell phone in our pocket contains so much complexity that it is beyond any 10 human minds combined to fully understand how the hardware, the device drivers, the OS, the app layer, and the internet all interact between each other.
shagie · 2024-09-09
I've read Singularity Sky, and Iron Sunrise. Also read http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/09/books-i-will-not-w…
> My first two published SF novels, "Singularity Sky" and "Iron Sunrise", have a long and tangled history. And I figure it's probably worth (a) explaining why there won't be a third one in that particular series, and (b) spoilering the plot thread I had kicking around that would have been in the third Eschaton novel if I was going to write it.
Freeze Frame Revolution I've enjoyed - I need to read the rest of that universe. https://www.goodreads.com/series/168556-sunflower-cycle
I've read Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky - The Children of the Sky is also on my reading list.
In high school I read Consider Phlebas and I need to do a read of the entirety of the series in one go.
I'll put the others on my to read list.
possibleworlds · 2024-09-05
Exactly. It's a fantastic book and extremely fun, but in Stross' own words: "In the background of what looks like a Panglossian techno-optimist novel, horrible things are happening."
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/05/crib-sheet-acceler…
On it's origins (extreme burnout as a programmer in a high growth environment during the dot com boom):
https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accel…
clipsy · 2024-02-19
I would argue it has been (and still is) a credible award because it is generally quite open about its policies. The choice to host the awards in Chengdu was not the act of some shadowy cabal, but a simple result of easily exploited policy. Charles Stross writes about it at length[0], but the simple gist is that it only costs $50 to vote on where the next year's awards are hosted, and there was a successful campaign to get SF fans in Chengdu to vote for their city.
Hopefully, as it has done in the past, the Hugos will update policy in a way that mitigates this sort of thing in the future. I don't see an easy solution, but I wish them the best.
[0]: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2024/01/worldcon-in-the-ne…
zetaben · 2023-11-19
Charles Stress has an excellent one Accelerando
https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accel…
See also this website for plenty SF stories in the public domain
https://www.feedbooks.com/publicdomain/browse/top?cat=FBFIC028000&…
Unfortunately the language filter doesn't seem to work correctly anymore
BLKNSLVR · 2023-08-17
Currently reading Accelerando[0] as a result of recommendations from prior HN book reading threads. Still in the first, Manfred Macx, section, but I look forward to settling down on the couch with it when I have the opportunity.
[0]: https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accel…
XorNot · 2023-07-20
Yes and no: good science fiction takes a trend and extrapolates. Extrapolation should be based on logic (to be good - but you can also just aim for entertaining and go wild).
The details might differ, but it's worth thinking about whether the implications make sense. Watt's certainly asks a lot of good questions which other orders have also asked - i.e. Accelerando[1] is very interested in the idea of "what happens to mankind when economic systems can no longer be participated in by recognizably human minds?" - taken out to the limits of known physics.
[1] https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accel…
^^^ You read the full-text here, I highly recommend it.
theamk · 2023-05-19
Not just Twitter, all big corporations
Charles Stross has a great essay about this, "Invaders From Mars"
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/12/invaders-from-mars…
mudita · 2023-03-19
Is this true? The author Charles Stross wrote "Your typical book publisher is not like the music or movie industry; they run on thin margins, and they're staffed by underpaid, overworked folk who do it because they love books, not because they're trying to make themselves rich on the back of a thousand ruthlessly exploited artists. I think their effort deserves to be rewarded appropriately." (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/03/reminder-why-there…
Semaphor · 2023-01-21
For someone who wants something less scary (Your comment and those that followed made me decide not to read it, I had enough from "I have no mouth, and I must scream"), I recently read Accelerando [0] by the same author. Starts like transhumanist cyberpunk, becomes transhumanist and posthuman sci-fi. I never felt so lost in a book. Like I was the conservative who couldn’t understand the world as it is today.
[0]: https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accel…
idiotsecant · 2023-01-04
Not only is there a scifi novel or a zillion about such a thing but you can read the best (i think) one right on the authors website.
Accelerando by Charlie Stross is not only about sun-brains, but is also about how they change human society and culture. Good book.
https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/acceler...
arethuza · 2022-12-16
Recommended reading on AGR plants - a blog entry by Charlie Stross about Torness, the other AGR plant in Scotland:
https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/rants/nothing-like-this-w…
jodrellblank · 2022-09-09
The problem is that there aren't any other planets. Venus is an inferno, Mars may as well be made of asbestos dust with a side of radiation and drought, those are the most hospitable ones in this solar system and we're not getting anywhere further anytime soon[1]. And the amount of rockets and environmental damage to launch billions of people and enough spaceships for billions of people is ... a lot.
[1] http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the_high_frontier_…
chroma · 2022-08-23
I'd ignore Stross. He's been predicting inflation and famine since Brexit passed.[1] Something about the past decade has broken his brain. Obviously the issues he mentions are worth worrying about, but they're not going to cause the UK or the rest of europe to fall into anarchy.
1. https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/10/facts-of-life-and…
watersb · 2022-05-09
"The Scoutmaster’s wife noted that a typical kid working on this badge goes to a hospital and asks about x-rays. David decided to build a Breeder Reactor."
.!!.
I'm currently reading through the 1950s "Tom Swift Jr." stories... so maybe that's why I expected this HN post to be a great work of fiction. Like Charles Stross' "De-chlorinating the Moderator" http://www.antipope.org/charlie/fiction/moderator.html
The real world can be more delightful. And terrifying.
Clewza313 · 2021-09-06
The game changer here is SpaceX's Starship. If you can lift 100T to orbit in one shot, that suffices to deploy around 6 MW worth of the current solar panels we use for the ISS, which clock in at around 120KW/2T. Solar panel efficiency has improved greatly since they were designed and built, so even accounting for the overhead of assembly, refueling, the transmission component etc, 10MW+ per launch seems quite feasible, particularly if Musk gets costs down to the mooted $20/kg or so.
Charlie Stross does the napkin math here: https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2021/09/fossil-fuels-are-…
blamestross · 2021-08-11
I agree with everything Stross said here, but I don't think he characterized the speed-of-light verification mechanism well.
He proposed it in his novel "Neptune's Brood" in 2013 and it is described in some more detail here: https://web.archive.org/web/20210514225451/http://www.antipope.org/cha… (original at http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/09/crib-sheet-neptune… but the site is dying)
I think it merits some formal consideration, a scifi novel isn't a whitepaper, but I think the concept has promise. You can't cheat the speed of light without finding a few jupiters worth of exotic matter.
MrRadar · 2021-06-26
I think science fiction author Charles Stores put it best in this 2016 blog post[1]:
> 2007 is when the human species accidentally invented telepathy (via the fusion of twitter, facebook, and other disclosure-induction social media with always-connected handheld internet devices). Telepathy, unfortunately, turns out to not be all about elevated Apollonian abstract intellectualism: it's an emotion amplifier and taps into the most toxic wellsprings of the subconscious. As implemented, it brings out the worst in us. Twitter and Facebook et al are fine-tuned to turn us all into car-crash rubberneckers and public execution spectators. It can be used for good, but more often it drags us down into the dim-witted, outraged weltanschauung of the mob.
[1] https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/01/some-american-pol…
flatline · 2021-06-04
My favorite back of the napkin math about the practical reality of interstellar space travel, from cstross:
https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the_high_frontier…
rektide · 2021-02-21
Sci-fi author Charlie Stross had a wonderful take-down of He3[1] a decade ago. It's alas not very technical. The short of it is that there are no reactors, if we do make them they are going to be insanely fantastically hot (a billion degrees), there's only ~10 parts per billion (according to your wikipedia link) on the moon & mining that will be hard, and then we'd have to transport the stuff too.
I'd read something else about the challenges of reactor design, but not sure what it was. I haven't been enthused about He3 since. I feel like the one interesting use would be a Project Orion / Nuclear Pulse Propulsion system, but wow, boy does that seem like an expensive way to do propulsion: what's the use case?
[1] http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/08/moonshine.html
wj · 2020-10-25
It is set a couple hundred years later but this Charles Stress story is a fun read about a group of coffee lovers:
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/toast/toast.html#c…
yboris · 2020-08-20
Personal all-time favorite, read it twice: Accelerando by Charles Stross
Set in three parts, exploring a future where people can upload themselves to computers, create digital copies, recombine, run minds faster than real-time, re-enter the non-digital world, travel to alien destinations, etc.
Free from the author: https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accel…
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17863.Accelerando
Apocryphon · 2020-08-05
Charles Stross' blog dates to 2006, though that's wading into the 2.0 era:
http://www.antipope.org
I've stumbled upon some rare updates here and then for specific interests. For instance, an early '00s Gundam site on Angelfire that was updated in 2014:
http://www.angelfire.com/anime2/zeonbase/1aindex.html
m3at · 2019-03-25
This blog post [1] from 2016 seems prescient, linking Apple's stance on privacy with it's hypothesized desire to become a bank.
It was a good read, hence why it jumped back to mind 3 years later.
Key point:
"Here's my theory: Apple see their long term future as including a global secure payments infrastructure that takes over the role of Visa and Mastercard's networks—and ultimately of spawning a retail banking subsidiary to provide financial services directly, backed by some of their cash stockpile. "
---------
[1] http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/03/follow-the-money-a…
avivo · 2019-02-06
Another classic in this genre, though more focused on world impact, is Charlie Stross's "Why I want Bitcoin to die in a fire" (2013)
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/why-i-want-bitcoin…
I may not be quite as strident as either of these takes, but I agree that the proponents are significantly overselling on a variety of axes... (while also believing that distributed append-only systems with consensus mechanisms can sometimes have value)
ben_w · 2018-08-01
No, but following that link manged to help me find the correct one, so thanks anyway: https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/02/cmap-2-how-books-…
noetic_techy · 2018-03-28
There was some talk way back during the FBI iPhone unlock crisis about Apple positioning itself to be strong on privacy so as to leverage their massive cash reserves to become a bank:
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/03/follow-the-money-a…
Although this idea has also been shot down:
https://www.vox.com/2016/3/30/11326016/apple-bank
I think its still a good bet that Apple is going to leverage itself as the go to company for privacy. You pay a premium, but you get a curated ecosystem and no data harvesting.
I think they should take this opportunity to launch a privacy-centric social network and attract more people cast adrift to the walled garden.