Steel beach
by John Varley · first published 1992
9mentions
3recommended by
9HN commenters
2009–2025first – last mentioned
33% recommend67% neutral
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Reminds me of John Varley's book Steel Beach. Set in the future, humans live on the Moon and everyone on Luna is connected to the central computer (CC) which behaves at once as government, friend, guide, psychologist, encyclopaedia and diary. Fascinating…
on “Forget virtual assistants, Asteria wants to be your AI friend” ↗"“In five years, the penis will be obsolete,” said the salesman." Steel Beach - John Varley.
on “What makes a great opening line?” ↗Steel Beach and Golden Globe are both great books.
on “John Varley has died” ↗This reminds me of the First Latitudinarian Church of Celebrity Saints, from John Varley's Steel Beach. Their temple features glass tubes in the rounded-rectangle of classic CRTs.
on “William Gibson: How I wrote Neuromancer” ↗FYI, my comment was a nebulous reference to "Steel Beach" by John Varley, about a future space civilization where dinosaurs had been cloned and were raised as game meat. No sense of humor around here, looks like. The fact is, if we could revive dinosaurs,…
on “'Biggest dinosaur ever' discovered” ↗Re-reading Steel Beach by John Varley. A sort of post-singularity romp from 1992. Politics And The Occult, by Gary Lachman. Much what it sounds like, a history of occult movements in politics. The Lunar Men, by Jenny Uglow.…
on “Ask HN: What books are you reading?” ↗Steel Beach by John Varley. It's been 20+ years since I read it, but the main character is a newspaper reporter and as I recall he writes notes in the field on some kind of a screen or film embedded in his forearm.
on “Ask HN: Can you recommend Sci-Fi books/stories?” ↗…Moon’s governing AI had tasked the book’s protagonist with discovering the cause with, after the protagonist recovered from being brought back in a fresh clone after succumbing to it. That’s the plot of Steel Beach, if you want to go see what happens next and how much time Varley actually spent on the details of this stuff.
on “John Varley has died” ↗…read this, even if they see a different future ahead. I would also like to read more stories of the "near cool" future rather than only have access to deeper stories like Diamond Age, Ender's Game, and Steel Beach.
on “Vernor Vinge's Rainbows End fails to thrill” ↗