Toast and Other Rusted Futures - Charles Stross

This collection contains stories that are 2000 or earlier. In the introduction Stross talks about the future catching up and getting to the stage of making a couple of them obsolete. That being a problem with writing that sort of SF in general, too. Also an amusing mini-section about what would happen if you time travelled back to see H. G. Wells and could minimally answer questions of his before the Time Police get you.

The stories themselves are high quality, in general, with a rather good 3.75 average. They range from downright nasty alternate histories to an odd fantasy and ubergeek extrapolation and multiple worlds.

Absolutely worth getting.

Toast : Antibodies - Charles Stross
Toast : Bear Trap - Charles Stross
Toast : Extracts from the Club Diary - Charles Stross
Toast : A Colder War - Charles Stross
Toast : Toast A con report - Charles Stross
Toast : A Boy and His God - Charles Stross
Toast : Ship of Fools - Charles Stross
Toast : Dechlorinating the Moderator - Charles Stross
Toast : Yellow Snow - Charles Stross
Toast : Big Brother Iron - Charles Stross

Worldline AI technology overrun.

5 out of 5

Share intelligence.

4 out of 5

A couple of gents found a coffee addicts club.

'A chap who would willingly spend two years in deepest Africa searching for the ultimate cup of coffee, yet who would uncomplainingly partake of the vile brew we were served that night, in the boudoir of the most notorious libertine and socialite of the age; such a man was, quite unmistakably, a fellow spirit. Like me, he was unmistakably trapped in the grip of the most potent addiction of our modern age. And, from the moment I discovered that I was not alone, the subsequent formation of our Club became inevitable.'

The story takes bits from their history throughout the decades:
'Whether or not those demented harridans obtain the satisfaction of their unreasonable demands for suffrage, we shall have no women in this club. This is a high-minded institution dedicated to the pursuit of the sublime beverage; likely as not, were we to admit women they would introduce embroidery, or worse still, insist on drinking tea.'

3.5 out of 5

The US works on highly advanced nuclear weapons programs to stop something far worse that the Soviets have available :

'What exactly are these weapons systems?'' demands the third inquisitor, a quiet, hawk-faced man sitting on the left of the panel.

The shoggot'im, they're called: servitors. There are several kinds of advanced robotic systems made out of molecular components: they can change shape, restructure material at the atomic level -- '

3.5 out of 5

Retrogeekgeargabfest.

4.5 out of 5

First, imagine Cthulhu as your pet, contained to a reasonable size. Then, imagine him on a skateboard. Sound way too crazy? Read this story, both happen.

4 out of 5

A group of technology experts in disaster situations have a bit of a floating conference to get away from it all.

2.5 out of 5

A highly geeky technical conference causes mind melting and hangovers:

'A seminar entitled: 'embedded universes 101', discussing the possibility of creating Linde-Mezhlumian fractally-embedded self- reproducing universes -- in effect, mini-big-bangs contained within pocket black holes -- which rapidly deteriorated into quasi-religious ranting when someone in the audience asked a remarkably convoluted question about the practicality of 'implementing the preconditions for a Barrow-Tipler strong anthropic cosmology' within the toy universes.

Some time during that last talk my brain underwent a loss of coolant accident and melted down. I confess: I'm not a true geek. The theological significance of the Higgs scalar field leaves me cold. I don't really understand how to create a pocket universe, or what it means. I'm just repeating what I heard there. These dudes are beyond it. Way beyond it. Whatever it is.'

3.5 out of 5

A drug manufacturer and dealer has to move faster and faster with the times.

Meeting a woman, he comes across some interesting technology:
'One Probabilistic Eigenstate Reorganisation Viewer, in full working order.''

3 out of 5

Party Inner Resistance Ring.

4 out of 5




4.5 out of 5

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/toast/toast.html