Karl Schroeder
| Karl Schroeder | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 4, 1962 Brandon, Manitoba,  Canada |
| Occupation | author, technology consultant |
| Genres | Science fiction |
| Notable work(s) | Ventus, Permanence |
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www.kschroeder.com |
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Karl Schroeder (born September 4, 1962) is an award-winning Canadian science fiction author. His novels present far-future speculations on topics such as nanotechnology, terraforming, augmented reality and interstellar travel, and have a deeply philosophical streak. One of his concepts, known as thalience, has gained some currency in the artificial intelligence and computer networking communities.[1]
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[edit] Biography
Schroeder was born into the Mennonite community in Brandon, Manitoba. He moved to Toronto, where he now lives with his wife and daughter, in 1986. After publishing a dozen short stories, Schroeder published his first novel, Ventus, in 2000. A prequel to Ventus, Lady of Mazes, was published in 2005. He has published seven more novels and is co-author (with Cory Doctorow) of the self-help book The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Science Fiction. Schroeder currently writes, teaches science fiction writing, and provides technology consulting services.[1]
[edit] Thalience
Thalience is a concept invented by Schroeder in Ventus. The idea of thalience has been adopted by some members of the artificial intelligence community to describe the self-organizing properties of fine-grained distributed networks.[citation needed] As presented in the novel, however, the concept may refer to the attempt to determine whether non-human sentient systems are truly independent minds, or whether they are merely "parrots" that give back to human researchers what the researchers expect to hear.[citation needed] The novel says that the word was deliberately chosen as an allusion to "silent Thalia", the muse of Nature. However, Ventus also more consistently refers to thalience as a state of being.[citation needed] Entities are considered "thalient" if they succeed in developing their own categories for understanding the world.[2]
[edit] Awards
- 1982. Pierian Spring Best Story award for The Great Worm.
- 1989. Context '89 fiction contest winner for The Cold Convergence.
- 1993. Aurora Award for Best Short Work in English for The Toy Mill.
- 2001. New York Times Notable book for Ventus.
- 2003. Aurora Award for best Canadian SF novel for Permanence.
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Novels
- The Claus Effect (with David Nickle). (Tesseract Books, 1997) ISBN 978-1-895836-35-6
- Ventus (Tor Books, 2000.) ISBN 978-0312871970
- Permanence (Tor Books, 2002.) ISBN 076530371X
- Lady of Mazes (Tor Books, 2005.) ISBN 978-0-7653-5078-7
- Crisis in Zefra (Directorate of Land Strategic Concepts, National Defense Canada; 2005.) ISBN 978-0662406433
[edit] The Virga series
- Sun of Suns (Tor Books, 2006.) ISBN 978-0-7653-5453-2
- Queen of Candesce (Tor Books, 2007.) ISBN 978-0-7653-1544-1
- Pirate Sun (Tor Books, 2008.) ISBN 978-0-7653-1545-8
- The Sunless Countries (Tor Books, 2009.) ISBN 978-0-7653-2076-6
- Ashes of Candesce
[edit] Short stories
- The Great Worm. (Pierian Spring, Fall 1983.)
- The Pools of Air. (Tesseracts3 anthology, Press Porcepic, 1991.) ISBN 978-0888782908
- Hopscotch. (On Spec magazine, summer 1992.)
- The Toy Mill (with David Nickle). (Tesseracts4 anthology, Beach Holme Press, 1992.) ISBN 978-0888783226
- Solitaire. (Figment magazine; Fall/Winter 1992.)
- The Cold Convergence. (Figment magazine, spring 1993.)
- Making Ghosts. (On Spec, Hard SF Issue, spring 1994.)
- The Engine of Recall. (Aboriginal SF, Winter 1997.)
- Ball of Blood. (Horrors! 365 Scary Stories anthology, Barnes and Noble, 1997). ISBN 9780760701416
- Halo. (Tesseracts 5 anthology, Tesseract Books, 1996.) ISBN 978-1895836264
- Dawn. (Tesseracts 7 anthology, Tesseract Books, 1999.) ISBN 978-1895836585
- The Dragon of Pripyat. (Tesseracts 8 anthology, Tesseract Books, 1999.) ISBN 978-1895836615
- Allegiances. (The Touch: Epidemic of the Millennium. iBooks, 2000.)
- The Engine of Recall (collection) (Red Deer Press, 2005.) ISBN 978-0889953451
- Book, Theatre, and Wheel. (Solaris Book of New SF #2, Solaris, 2008.)
- Mitigation. (Fast Forward #2, Pyr Books, 2009.)
- To Hie from Far Cilenia. (Metatropolis, Tor, 2010). ISBN 978-0765327109
[edit] Nonfiction
- Merry Christmas, You Ungrateful Bastards. (On Spec Summer 1993.)
- Warm Fuzziness: Quantum Mechanics and the New Age. (Transforum, August 1993.)
- Worldbuilding (SF Canada, Spring 1999.)
- The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Science Fiction (with Cory Doctorow). (MacMillan, 2000.) ISBN 978-0028639185
- Traitor to Both Sides. (The New York Review of Science Fiction, April 2005.)
[edit] References
- ^ a b Karl Schroeder official website, accessed September, 2008.
- ^ Thalience and the Semantic Web, January 16, 2003, accessed September, 2008.
[edit] External links
- Official site - including Creative Commons-licensed text of some of his works
- Karl Schroeder at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Permanence - An Adaptationist Solution to Fermi's Paradox? by Milan M. Cirkovic
- Adaptationism Fails to Resolve Fermi’s Paradox, Serbian Astronomical Journal, Vol. 170, pp. 89-100 (2005), by Milan Cirkovic with Ivana Dragicevic and Tanja Beric-Bjedov.
- Interview with Karl Schroeder - small WORLD Podcast 2006
- Video of Karl Schroeder on The Agenda with Steve Paikin, "Are We Bound for Space?" panel discussion with Chris Hadfield, Donna Shirley, Lawrence Krauss and Robert D. Richards
- Audio of Karl Schroeder, "The Rewilding: A Metaphor" presentation at the O'Reilly Media Open Source Conference.
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