Charles Stross (Boskone 48 guest of honor) burst onto the SF scene in 2003, when Ace published Singularity Sky and the folks at Hugo gave it a nod. He has yet to leave center stage.
The novella Concrete Jungle took a Hugo in 2005, Accelerando brought home a Locus in 2006 and Stross walked with Boskone’s Skylark Award in 2008. Let us not forget the Bob Howard series, The Jennifer Morgue being the best-known entry, that seems to be making Stross some money. Howard is metaphysical James Bond for the IT set, among other things, and his continued adventures make for an approachable but nicely challenging read.
That’s a pretty amazing six years, no matter that Stross got his first short story published in Interzone in the mid ’80s and started out writing RPG articles for White Dwarf in the late 1970s.
The secret to Stross’ success is simple: He’s a good writer, who respects the intelligence of his readers and brings new ideas to the table. Whether you’re diving into Singularity and pondering the motives of an alien race who instantaneously relocated vast swathes of the human race, wondering how a bank could be robbed through a MMORPG, or perusing the hapless (but not helpless) Bob Howard’s adventures in The Atrocity Archives, there’s nearly always a sense of “I haven’t read this before, and I like it.”
Stross is a Boskone veteran and his panels are well-attended and lively. He’s a class act all around, and well worth a look see and a listen. And a read.
Rob Greene is a writer and English teacher in southern New Hampshire.
Boskone 49 