Walkaway & the Collapsing Empire | Cory Doctorow & John Scalzi | Talks at Google

Cory Doctorow and John Scalzi stop by the Googleplex to discuss their most recent books, and each other.
Cory Doctorow's "Walkaway"
Fascinating, moving, and darkly humorous, Walkaway is a multi-generation SF thriller about the wrenching changes of the next hundred years...and the very human people who will live their consequences.
John Scalzi's "The Collapsing Empire"
Our universe is ruled by physics. Faster than light travel is impossible-until the discovery of The Flow, an extradimensional field available at certain points in space-time, which can take us to other planets around other stars.
Riding The Flow, humanity spreads to innumerable other worlds. Earth is forgotten. A new empire arises, the Interdependency, based on the doctrine that no one human outpost can survive without the others. It’s a hedge against interstellar war-and, for the empire’s rulers, a system of control.
The Flow is eternal-but it’s not static. Just as a river changes course, The Flow changes as well. In rare cases, entire worlds have been cut off from the rest of humanity. When it’s discovered that the entire Flow is moving, possibly separating all human worlds from one another forever, three individuals-a scientist, a starship captain, and the emperox of the Interdependency-must race against time to discover what, if anything, can be salvaged from an interstellar empire on the brink of collapse.
Google Play links: goo.gl/Lw5Hk8 (Cory) & goo.gl/CPXFcd (John)

[@dominictemple]

Always a delight listening to either of these two chaps, a special one listening to them both at the same time chatting to each other.

[@chawley650]

58:23 .. 59:07 possibly the finest response I have yet heard to the net neutrality "question" -- thank you, Mr. Scalzi.

[@farche2]

Especially appreciate the red star on Doctorow's chest. Subtle stuff!

[@donluchitti]

You created the concept of "flow"? Sounds like warp to me

[@toutlemonde5017]

Isn't warp traditionally more of a bending-space-time sort of process, as opposed to "the flow" being a separate system outside of our dimension?

[@donluchitti]

By system, does that mean occupied universe with its own intelligent creatures and navigable space? In Star Wars, "hyperspace" used portholes into an alternate dimension that allowed one to shortcut into the original dimension. So yea, I guess warp is less like what I"m hearing about "the flow". Warp involves creating a field the ship traveled in called subspace. Subspace, while it was never defined as an alternate dimension was the condition of space wherein traditional laws of physics were suspended because of warp fields. They would colloquially talk about warp as if it were an altered, distorted permutation of normal space which could be construed as "another dimension" of sorts. In one episode, they even had creatures that lived in subspace make contact with the crew of the Enterprise. But because Star Trek is older, I personally don't like hearing people say "I created the concept of using another dimension for faster than light travel" because Star Trek was the genesis of that oh so wonderful plot device, even if Star Wars mutated the idea slightly. It's still Rodenberry's baby.

[@Eminar5]

I'm fairly sure John would never claim that he doesn't borrow from others (and more or less says this in one of the answers talking about creative work in general). The Flow isn't just a straight out carbon copy of popular FTL travel methods though. It is basically extra dimensional hyperlanes that you can enter and exit anywhere along them rather than in specific areas, and as it turns out they can for some reason or another shift and so aren't tied to objects of immense mass for instance which hyperlanes usually are in some way. What John borrowed from perhaps more than anything else (and has said so himself) are oceanic currents on Earth.

[@randwilliams5552]

@@Eminar5 He also pulls very heavily from Asimov. TCE is a less thought out Foundation

[@theartist124]

Cory is amazing!!!