I’ve mentioned previously that a big chunk of Void Black Shadow takes place within a suitably horrific imperial prison. So, when it was time to come up with something for the Tor.com blog, I decided to look into prisons of science fiction and fantasy.
In looking for hints of books I could read for the article, I came across this entry at the sf-encyclopedia. It was of limited value though, skewing heavily toward old white guy books, covering a lot of short stories, and including books that merely mentioned a prison but were not really relevant. I don’t regret reading Ian Banks’ Player of Games as it was my first foray into the Culture series, however, the four paragraphs that mentioned prisons were hardly enough to warrant an inclusion in the encyclopaedia, IMHO.
Another book I read, but didn’t end up using was Charles Stoss’ Glasshouse. I mainly left it out because it had a lot of parallels with Hannu Rajaniemi‘s The Quantum Thief, but wasn’t quite as good (again, IMHO). I would go into more detail, but I wrote a whole heap today, still want to work on some other projects, and would prefer it if my brain didn’t leak out of my ears.
Also – I’m not sure if it’s too late, but the most recent free ebook giveaway from the Tor.com Newsletter was The Quantum Thief, so if you haven’t already signed up, do so now!