True Names: story podcast about the warring superintelligences of the Singularity

I've just posted the first installment of a podcast reading of a new novella that I co-wrote with Hugo- and Nebula-nominee Benjamin Rosenbaum. The story's a big, 32,000-word piece called "True Names" (in homage to Vernor Vinge's famous story of the same name), and it involves the galactic wars between vast, post-Singularity intelligences that are competing to corner the universe's supply of computation before the heat-death of the universe.

Ben and I will be reading the story in weekly installments, taking turns as our schedules allow. The reading is Creative Commons licensed -- Attribution-ShareAlike-NonCommercial -- and the story itself will be published this fall in Fast Forward 2, Lou Anders' followup to his knockout 2007 anthology, Fast Forward (regular Boing Boing readers will remember Paul Di Filippo's Wikiworld story from that volume). Lou's given us permission to post the story's text simultaneous with the book's publication, under the same Creative Commons license.

I had a nearly illegal amount of fun working on this story with Ben, who is a gonzo comp-sci geek with a real flair for phrasing, and I hope you'll enjoy hearing it as much as we enjoyed writing it! Link, Podcast feed

[#1 posted by ZioStefano , March 13, 2008 9:27 AM]

Gttng dwn t bsnss

[#2 posted by Joe , March 13, 2008 9:48 AM]

s/flare/flair/

[#3 posted by vellon , March 13, 2008 11:09 AM]

Hurrah!

I've been waiting anxiously for a long time for Cory's podcast to return to his own work.

[#4 posted by DGHilton , March 13, 2008 1:35 PM]

I just listened for about 35 minutes and still have absolutely no idea whatsoever exactly what any of it is supposed be about. And I'm one of the five people who actually read 'The Singularity in Near' without laughing myself into a comatose state of near singularity.

Probably a reflection on me, tho.

[#5 posted by EnglishNerd , March 14, 2008 1:38 AM]

I think it's interesting so far, and I want to know what's going to happen next! I think I'm going to have to read it myself to understand more of it, but that's definitely because of how I learn. Thanks for sharing your work online like you do.

[#6 posted by mannakiosk , March 14, 2008 6:18 PM]

I haven't listened to this yet, but usage of the word "gonzo" in describing one of the authors sounds really promising.

[#7 posted by mannakiosk , March 14, 2008 7:13 PM]

Wow... I hope that, at the end, someone will use git and merge everything into one, but that's just me, I want everyone to get along... Can't wait for the next part.