Orion's Arm Universe Project
Walter Jon Williams
Background Information:
Wikipedia Bio
::Home Page::
Reader's Thoughts:
Angel Station - a rather neat look at an expanding human civilization which meets an alien race in interstellar space. Although elements of this tale may be usefully applied to our setting, the story lacks superhuman AIs, also it states that ships have to be equipped with naturally occurring mini black holes for FTL, but it has since been shown that mini black holes are unstable. If they formed in the early universe they would quickly evaporate. And if they were manufactured artificially they would also evaporate (however, the mini black hole trope is also used in the very hard science Transhuman Space RPG). A nice novel nevertheless.
M Alan Kazlev
Aristoi - Describes a sophisticated, slightly decadent su culture, perhaps applicable to the federation period or the outer volumes.
Anders Sandberg
Voice of the Whirlwind - like Sterling's Schizmatrix, this is pretty much a sort of mild cyberpunk set in the Interplanetary age. A lot of useful ideas here - Condecology nation states (essentially arcologies with their own laws, currency etc), Policorps (Political Megacorps, rather like the megacorps of Orion's Arm), clones, backup memories, genetically engineered space adapts and superior races of humans....This scenario is a little closer to that of Orion's Arm than Angel Station. However, like many SF writers Williams resorts to the over-used dramatic device of an alien race that has contacted humanity
M Alan Kazlev
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Wikipedia Bio
::Home Page::
Reader's Thoughts:
Angel Station - a rather neat look at an expanding human civilization which meets an alien race in interstellar space. Although elements of this tale may be usefully applied to our setting, the story lacks superhuman AIs, also it states that ships have to be equipped with naturally occurring mini black holes for FTL, but it has since been shown that mini black holes are unstable. If they formed in the early universe they would quickly evaporate. And if they were manufactured artificially they would also evaporate (however, the mini black hole trope is also used in the very hard science Transhuman Space RPG). A nice novel nevertheless.
M Alan Kazlev
Aristoi - Describes a sophisticated, slightly decadent su culture, perhaps applicable to the federation period or the outer volumes.
Anders Sandberg
Voice of the Whirlwind - like Sterling's Schizmatrix, this is pretty much a sort of mild cyberpunk set in the Interplanetary age. A lot of useful ideas here - Condecology nation states (essentially arcologies with their own laws, currency etc), Policorps (Political Megacorps, rather like the megacorps of Orion's Arm), clones, backup memories, genetically engineered space adapts and superior races of humans....This scenario is a little closer to that of Orion's Arm than Angel Station. However, like many SF writers Williams resorts to the over-used dramatic device of an alien race that has contacted humanity
M Alan Kazlev
BACK