Karl Schroeder is an award-winning Canadian science fiction author and a consultant in the areas of foresight studies and technology.
Karl is recognized for inventing the term thalience, a concept that speculates about the possibility of engineered systems that could generate their own categories for understanding the world. These systems could help humans determine what reality actually is, instead of requiring us to define it and acting on our instructions. A thalient system might collaborate with humans to answer questions such as “What is the world really made of?” and “How much of our understanding is subjective, and is truly objective knowledge even possible?” To have your mind blown by thalience in Karl’s own words, check out this article on Karl’s website.
Among Karl’s best-known novels is Ventus, an epic Hard SF adventure. In 2005 Karl published Lady of Mazes, which delves deeper into the Ventus universe and explores the potential of artificial intelligence to revolutionize human culture. His most recent novel, Ashes of Candesce, concludes the Virga saga, set in a far-future steampunk universe.
In addition to these works, Karl has published a number of other novels and short stories, and is co-author, with Cory Doctorow, of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Publishing Science Fiction.
Photo courtesy of Pinar Ozger, used under a CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license. Thanks Pinar!