Monday 3 January 2011

Something you won't find on Wikileaks

It's only low-grade stuff. Nothing like GAME ANDES REDSHIFT or GOLD JULY BOOJUM. Let alone CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN.

For that, read The Concrete Jungle by Charles Stoss.
If we pursue this plan, by late 2006 any two adjacent public CCTV terminals — or private camcorders equipped with a digital video link — will be reprogrammable by any authenticated MAGINOT BLUE STARS superuser to permit the operator to turn them into a SCORPION STARE basilisk weapon. We remain convinced that this is the best defensive posture to adopt in order to minimize casualties when the Great Old Ones return from beyond the stars to eat our brains.
Fiction of course. Nothing requiring SHAKESPEARE clearance, and no hint of Manifestation 17, let alone the other, less spectacular (and easier to conceal) events. They didn't happen, either. No sudden midnight rains of thousands of dead blackbirds or similar warnings of something about to come through that Man Was Not Meant To Know.

Talking about Wikileaks, may I refer the gentle reader to A Field Guide to Wikileaks and Its Adversaries. An excellent summary of what's happening, and who's involved.

For more of Charles Stoss' work - see his Christmas story, Overtime, and this little one about a very special hospital.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Two comments, Zoe:

1) That's Charles stRoss!

2) That Very Special Hospital is Special, indeed! I read this one a while back: a great piece!

Halting State is IMIO classic, with the most riotously hilarious ending of any novel... ever. (YMMV, the joke will have an expiration date...)

Stross' work is very very good SF, very imaginative AND amusing. And... scary. Sometimes our future visualized as digitized meta-entities doesn't seem to be really appealing...