I think it would be helpful if you could clarify as to which aspects of Eclipse Phase you find most interesting. EP is an amalgam of a number of different transhumanist concepts, so some are stronger in some books than in others. If you like human modification, I'd start with Alastair Reynolds. Just about anything of his is great, but I just wrapped up Galactic North, which covers a lot of ground very quickly, and is a great read. For culture and transhumanist thinking, I'd go with Ian Banks. Again, i haven't seen anything of his that doesn't seem appropriate. Player of Games inspired me for about six months, and I still can't play chess without thinking of it. I've heard Richard Morgan focuses on this (less on the 'future of humanity' and more of the 'my soul is transferable' aspect of things), but I haven't read any myself. For uplifts, David Brin is where it's at. His books are THE BEST regarding uplifts in a star-faring society, and a great set of action books. Nanotechnology? Diamond Age. It's a dense book, but there's no book which has explored nanotech as well as this (that I have read). However, the absolute, most Transhumanist, genre-defining book, in my not-so-humble opinion would be Bruce Sterling's two books, Chismatrix and Crystal Express. Both are *FANTASTIC*, the best, change how you read sci-fi sort of books. I heart them. Holy Fire is transhumanist and okay, but not quite EP. Haven't read Caryatids. So if I were to put my reading list in order, I'd tend to go: Sterling - Crystal Express Sterling - Schismatrix Reynolds - Galactic North Then whatever you want. Get those three though (they're cheap) and you won't regret it.

Yes, the mentioned authors are very good for EP. I especially think Watt's dark perspective and Stross' wild posthuman possibilities are appropriate. "Saturns children" by Stross is a great look at an EP-like solar system run by AGI. For a more cerebral approach, I recommend Greg Egan. Permutation City is the great infomorph novel, Distress has lots of applicable biotech, Diaspora is so far the great posthuman novel in my opinion. Many of his short stories have really good cognotech ("Chaff", "Learning to be me", "Reasons to be cheerful"). Somewhat similar and very sharp is Ted Chiang: his short stories "Understand" (superintelligence) and "Liking What You See: A Documentary" (egalitarian psychosurgery) are very good. His new book "The lifecycle of software objects" seem to be about AGI rearing. Michael Swanwick's "Vacuum Flowers" is also good for biotech and cognotech.

nezumi.hebereke wrote:

However, the absolute, most Transhumanist, genre-defining book, in my not-so-humble opinion would be Bruce Sterling's two books, Chismatrix and Crystal Express. Both are *FANTASTIC*, the best, change how you read sci-fi sort of books. I heart them. Holy Fire is transhumanist and okay, but not quite EP. Haven't read Caryatids. So if I were to put my reading list in order, I'd tend to go: Sterling - Crystal Express Sterling - Schismatrix Reynolds - Galactic North Then whatever you want. Get those three though (they're cheap) and you won't regret it.

I heartily agree with this recommendation, especially Schismatrix and Crystal Express. If you're just looking for the Shaper/Mechanist aspects, the Schizmatrix Plus edition has the novel and all the short stories together in one volume.

Try "The Phantom of Kansas" by John Varley he wrote it in '76 but it spoke Eclipse Phase to me. Also Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained by Peter F Hamilton are quite good if you can live with reading a 2000 page story divided into two books. His Void Trilogy is also quite good.

Vernor Vinge for great insight on singularities and cybernetic consciousness. Specifically, "True Names" and "The Cookie Monster" are good reads on the subject. EDIT: Also, check out John Brunner's work. The Shockwave Rider, The Sheep Look Up and Stand On Zanzibar are very compelling looks at a continuously morphing society, environmental destruction and overpopulation.

Not quite a novel, BUT if you want a darkly hilarious post-cyberpunk comic book, check out Transmetropolitan. It's about a drug addicted gonzo style journalist endeavoring to take down an insane US president with the twin powers of Truth and a bowel disruptor gun. It's fantastic.

Yes, sorry, forgot. Graphic novel, not comic book. Though, I remember it being more transhuman than cyberpunk. It definitely had a lot of transhumans in it.

I just saw a bit on an upcoming comic series that sounds like good [i]Eclipse Phase[/i] inspiration, Kieron Gillen's [i]The Heat[/i]:

Quote:

[b]Tell us a little about your upcoming science fiction series for Avatar Press, [i]The Heat.[/i][/b] I'm a little hesitant to talk about it because I'm not quite sure when it's going to come out. It's a cop action drama that's set on Mercury a couple hundred years in the future. A comparison to the book is Greg Rucka's Whiteout, a police procedural set at the South Pole, although it's not as much as a procedural as much as it is Judge Dredd. The entirety of the story is shaped by the fact that it is on Mercury; the days are blazing and the nights are freezing. A large part of the plot focuses on characters staying with a habitable band of climate and outrunning the sunrise. It's essentially about environmentalism and culture and there's a lot of psychosexual tension. It's big exciting stuff, like 2000 AD.

Try 'Recursion' by Tony Ballantyne (2004). It has so much EP - related stuff in it, I'm suprised it's not cited as a source. It has self- replicating machines, a Great and Powerful Enemy 'out there', a fantastic description of Forking and sleeving (albieit in a limited fashion), a totalitarian 'nanny state', multiple Intelligences in one body, 'ghosts' etc. About half-way through my second reading so far.

Counting Heads by David Marusek is worth a read. It's not as seriously about _transhumanism_ as much as the impacts of nanotech, corporatism, social stratification, panopticon society, AI, and rejuvenation technology. Cities bunkered by nanotech to keep out rogue leftover nano-scale war machines. Surveillance slugs id'ing you by wrapping around your ankle, tracking nano lodging itself in your skin. Adults rejuvenating to children, or a 29-year-old who's still putting off puberty. OK, I suppose that does make it about transhumanism in a pretty serious way. The description on the back of my copy made it sound like it was the strident adventures of a affluent guy trying to save his daughter, after falling from his aristocratic caste. There's that, but the plot traces the paths of a large number of people over the course of a very short span of time (after the first chapter, that is). Marusek does a great job building this world, and despite the current top review on Amazon, I felt like the character-building was good, especially once we're not just focused on said formerly-affluent guy. Also do have to recommend Richard Morgan's Takeshi Kovachs trilogy - felt like the 3rd one in the series was the strongest. Coincidentally, it is probably the one with the most crazy-neato technology running around. The first book is set on Earth, humanity's technological hinterlands in the series; the next two show more and more technologically advanced places (aided no doubt by the fact that Kovach has lived a fairly long time by the time the third book occurs). We3 is a short comic-book series written by Grant Morrison. Though set in Ye Olde Modern Times, it focuses on animals that are uplifted and repurposed for military use. The 'Missing Pet' covers are pretty heartbreaking. "Here is my dumb, pre-weaponized labrador mix, gazing blankly into the camera flash." versus "Here is a heavily armored hunter-killer whose post-mission reward is someone saying 'Good!'" Freedom(TM) by Daniel Suarez is also set in Ye Modern Days. Though the characters by and large are not backing themselves up on computers and such, it is concerned with creating anarchistic reputation-based societies that rely heavily on augmented reality, and it makes such sound fairly plausible and even dare-I-say desirable. It's the sequel to his first book, Daemon, which sets up the characters and events in Freedom(TM). Daemon is alright for techno-thrillerdom, but the characterization and dialogue often come across as flat - there's a love-story plot thread that especially brings this out. Freedom(TM) is way, waay better - it dares to explore wider and neater ideas, the bulk of which delves into the theory and practice of characters creating a new social and political body within the modern world using augmented reality, reputation scores, 3D printers and smarter agriculture. The characterization and dialogue are also improved. But to me the big takeaway is making some of the wilder societies in EP seem a bit more understandable.

Unfortunately not. The only official Eclipse Phase fiction to date are the short stories that have kicked off the major books in the line.

the Quantum Thief. A bit over the top, but still entertaining.