Ask Charles Stross ANYTHING! discussion
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I would be surprised if there were any protocol. Which means you & we can define the protocol. I propose that everything should be fun or interesting or surprising and always more or less civil.
In Accelerando and the early Laundry books several locations feature prominently. Namely Amsterdam, Milton Keynes. Do you have specific connections to these places or did you just choose them at random?
Mod
Milton Keynes ... no emotional connection, but I lived not far away (in Hertford) for a year, and knew it well enough that when I wanted a surreal mission to send Bob on, the concrete cows sprang instantly to mind.
You seem to have quite a few books coming out that are series continuations (which is great). Are there any standalones coming along? (That would also be great).
I'm reading the Laundry books and am really enjoying them. Do you have an over-arcing storyline in mind for Bob over the course of the series (involving CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN?), or is each adventure more standalone?Either way, I'm looking forward to reading The Rhesus Chart!
Mod
However, my publishers like sequels a lot. They're easier to quantify, and in turbulent times they offer a kind of security blanket. So the four novels coming after "Neptune's Brood" are a fifth Laundry Files novel ("The Rhesus Chart", due in 2014), and a trilogy, currently without titles, but which I'm thinking of as "Merchant Princes: The Next Generation".
Mod
I'll give you the first line of The Rhesus Chart for free:
"Don't be silly," said Mo: "Everybody knows vampires don't exist!"
Charles wrote: "Amsterdam: I was actually there when the purulent emotional abscess that powered "Lobsters" was lanced. In the pub mentioned in that story (later to become first chapter of "Accelerando"). Details..."I asked because I used to live in A'dam and MK. I also spent a lot of time working in Boston. Ironically, I read "Family Trade" on a flight to the UK last week. Are you stalking me? :-)
Please don't say you're planning to set something in Shanghai…
Mod
(Kuala Lumpur ... I hope to get a chance to poke my nose around the place later this year. In which case, you never know!)
dear santa,i was a good boy all 2012.What i wish for is, can you help Mr stross write something, ANYTHING with some of my "imaginary" friends"? they are named Neal Stephenson,Neal Asher,Steven Erikson. thank you,santa.
Mod
(I'm under contract to write a trilogy during the next 18 months. Don't have time for collaborations! Which in any case require each collaborator to put in about 75% of the work of writing the whole thing themself.)
No worries santa! At least i have something to look forward to either stack next to the bed or keep on my side pocket. :)
I've listening to the Laundry Files as audiobooks, but apparently none exist of Equoid, which is one of my favorites. If enough of your fans make puppydog eyes at you, might you record a reading of it like you did for Down on the Farm?
Will you write some more books by The Merchant Princess series?
(This AMA is by way of light distraction while I redraft "The Rhesus Chart" for submission and begin outlining work on the trilogy with the working title, "Merchant Princes: The Next Generation".)