Charles Stross

Charles Stross
Charles Stross at Eastercon 2012
Born	(1964-10-18) 18 October 1964 Leeds, England
Occupation	Writer, former Programmer and Pharmacist
Nationality	British
Alma mater	University of Bradford
Period	1990s–present
Genres	Science fiction, fantasy, horror
Influences Isaac Asimov, John le Carré, William Gibson, Robert A. Heinlein, H. P. Lovecraft, Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling
www.antipope.org/charlie/

Charles David George "Charlie" Stross (born 18 October 1964) is a British writer of science fiction, Lovecraftian horror and fantasy. He was born in Leeds.

Stross specialises in hard science fiction and space opera. His contemporaries include Alastair Reynolds, Ken MacLeod, Liz Williams, Neal Asher and Richard Morgan.

Between 1994 and 2004, he was also an active writer for the magazine Computer Shopper and was responsible for the monthly Linux column. Due to time constraints, he eventually had to stop writing for Computer Shopper so that he could devote more time to his novels. Subsequently, he published all his articles on the Internet.

Biography

In the 1970s and 1980s, Stross published some role-playing game articles about Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in the White Dwarf magazine. Some of his creatures, such as the death knight, githyanki (borrowed from George R. R. Martin's book, Dying of the Light), githzerai, and slaad (a chaotic race notable for their rigid caste system) were later published in the Fiend Folio monster compendium.

His first published short story, "The Boys", appeared in Interzone in 1987. His first novel, Singularity Sky was published by Ace Books in 2003 and was nominated for the Hugo Award. A collection of his short stories, Toast: And Other Rusted Futures appeared in 2002. Subsequent short stories have been nominated for the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, and other awards. His novella "The Concrete Jungle" won the Hugo award for its category in 2005. His novel Accelerando won the 2006 Locus Award for best science fiction novel, was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for the year's best science fiction novel, and was on the final ballot for the Hugo Award in the best novel category. Glasshouse won the 2007 Prometheus Award and was on the final ballot for the Hugo Award in the best novel category. His novella "Missile Gap" won the 2007 Locus Award for best novella and most recently he was awarded the Edward E. Smith Memorial Award or Skylark at Boskone 2008.

In addition to working as a writer of fiction he has worked as a technical author, freelance journalist, programmer, and pharmacist at different times. He holds degrees in Pharmacy and Computer Science.

Rogue Farm, an animated film based on his 2003 short story of the same title, debuted in August 2004.

He was one of the Guests of Honour at Orbital 2008 the British National Science Fiction convention (Eastercon) in March 2008. He was the Author Guest of Honour at the Maryland Regional Science Fiction Convention (Balticon) in May 2009. He was Author Guest of Honour at Fantasticon (Denmark), August 2009. He was the Guest of Honor of Boskone 48 in Feb 2011.

In September, 2012, Stross released The Rapture of The Nerds, a novel written in collaboration with Cory Doctorow.

Awards

Accelerando won the 2006 Locus Award Best Novel. "Missile Gap" won the 2007 Locus Award for best novella. "The Concrete Jungle" (contained in The Atrocity Archives) won the Hugo Award for best novella in 2005, and "Palimpsest", included in Wireless, won the same award in 2010. Stross's work has also been nominated for a number of other awards, including the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the Hugo Award for Best Novel, as well as the Japanese Seiun Award.

Bibliography

Stand-alone novels

Charles Stross in March 2013 at DortCon Dortmund, Germany

• Scratch Monkey (released, 1993; published, 2011) available online
• Accelerando (2005, ISBN 0-441-01284-1) available online
• Glasshouse (2006, ISBN 0-441-01403-8)
• The Rapture of the Nerds (2012, collaboration with Cory Doctorow)

Eschaton series

• Singularity Sky (2003, ISBN 0-441-01072-5)
• Iron Sunrise (2004, ISBN 1-84149-335-X)

The Laundry Files

A series of science fiction spy thrillers about Bob Howard, a one-time I.T. consultant, now field agent working for British government agency 'the Laundry', which deals with occult threats. Influenced by Lovecraft's visions of the future, and set in a world where a computer and the right mathematical equations is just as useful a toolset for calling up horrors from other dimensions as a spellbook and a pentagram on the floor.

• The Atrocity Archives (2004, ISBN 1-930846-25-8; also contains the extra story The Concrete Jungle, Best Novella winner, 2005 Hugo Awards)
• The Jennifer Morgue (2006, ISBN 1-930846-45-2; also contains the extra story Pimpf)
• Down on the Farm (2008 novelette) available online
• The Fuller Memorandum (2010, ISBN 1-84149-770-3)
• Overtime (2009 novelette) available online
• The Apocalypse Codex (2012)
• The Rhesus Chart (working title, probably July 2014)

Stross also authorised, but did not author, an official role-playing game, The Laundry (2010, ISBN 1-907204-93-8, Gareth Hanrahan, published by Cubicle 7) and a number of supplements based on the "Bob Howard — Laundry" series. The system uses an adaptation of the Call of Cthulhu RPG rules (under licence from Chaosium).

Merchant Princes series

The Merchant Princes is a series in which some humans have an ability to travel between parallel Earths, which have differing levels of technology. This series is science fiction, even though it was originally marketed by the publisher as fantasy. The first three books were collectively nominated for and won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in 2007.

• The Family Trade (2004, ISBN 0-7653-0929-7)
• The Hidden Family (2005, ISBN 0-7653-1347-2)
• The Clan Corporate (2006, ISBN 0-7653-0930-0)
• The Merchants' War (2007, ISBN 0-7653-1671-4)
• The Revolution Business (2009, ISBN 0-7653-1672-2)
• The Trade of Queens (2010, ISBN 0-7653-1673-0)

The six books were later edited into three longer novels, titled The Bloodline Feud, The Traders' War, and The Revolution Trade. The series was originally intended to be composed of books of this length, but only Family Trade and Hidden Family were originally written together. The new books will be released in the UK beginning in April 2013. In January 2013 Tor announced a new Merchant Princes trilogy.

Halting State series

Science-fiction/crime novels set 'fifteen minutes in the future' which concentrate on life in the early 21st century, and how innovations in policing, surveillance, economics computer games, the internet, memes and other inventions may change our lives in the future.

• Halting State (2007, ISBN 978-0-441-01498-9)
• Rule 34 (2011, ISBN 978-0-441-02034-8))
• The Lambda Functionary (working title- planned for 2014)

Saturn's Children series

Stross's space opera series, featuring the android society that develops after the extinction of humanity.

• Saturn's Children (2008, ISBN 0-441-01594-8)
• Neptune's Brood (2013, ISBN 0-425-25677-4)

Omnibus titles

The Science Fiction Book Club has published omnibus editions in the US that combine two books, without new material.

• Timelike Diplomacy (2004; combines Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise)
• On Her Majesty's Occult Service (2007, combines The Atrocity Archives and The Jennifer Morgue)

Collections

• Toast: And Other Rusted Futures (2002, ISBN 1-58715-413-7) available online, containing** “Toast: A Con Report” (Interzone, August 1998)
  • “Extracts from the Club Diary” (Odyssey 3, 1998)
  • “Ship of Fools” (Interzone 98, June 1995)
  • “Dechlorinating the Moderator” (Interzone 101, 1996)
  • “Yellow Snow” (Interzone 37, July 1990)
  • “Lobsters” (Asimov’s SF Magazine, June 2001); Best Novelette nominee, 2002 Hugo Awards
  • “Antibodies” (Interzone 157, July 2000)
  • “Bear Trap” (Spectrum SF 1, January 2000)
  • “A Colder War” (Spectrum SF 3, August 2000) available online
• Wireless: The Essential Charles Stross (2009, ISBN 978-0-441-01719-5), containing
  • “Rogue Farm” (Live Without a Net, 2003, edited by Lou Anders, ISBN 978-0-451-45945-9)
  • “Unwirer” with Cory Doctorow (ReVisions, 2004 edited by Julie E. Czerneda and Isaac Szpindel, ISBN 978-0-7564-0240-2)
  • “MAXOS” (Nature, 2005)
  • “Missile Gap” (One Million A.D., 2005, edited by Gardner Dozois, ISBN 978-0-7394-6273-7)
  • “Snowball's Chance” (Nova Scotia: New Scottish Speculative Fiction, 2005, edited by Neil Williamson and Andrew J. Wilson, ISBN 978-1-84183-086-5)
  • “Trunk and Disorderly” (Asimov's Science Fiction, 2007)
  • “Down on the Farm” (Tor.com, 2008) available online

• • “Palimpsest”; Best Novella winner, 2010 Hugo Awards

Short fiction

• A Colder War (2000, novelette) available online
• Halo (2002, novelette)
• Missile Gap (2007, ISBN 1-59606-058-1; novella) available online
• Minutes of the Labour Party Conference 2016 (2007, short story in the Glorifying Terrorism anthology)

Non-fiction

• The Web Architect's Handbook (1996, ISBN 0-201-87735-X)

External links

• Official website and blog
• Charles Stross at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Author's livejournal
• Author's Perl CPAN contributions