"True Names" is a 2008

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

story by

Cory Doctorow Cory Efram Doctorow (; born July 17, 1971) is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who served as co-editor of the blog ''Boing Boing''. He is an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent of ...

and

Benjamin Rosenbaum Benjamin Rosenbaum (born August 23, 1969) is an American science fiction, fantasy, and literary fiction writer and computer programmer, whose stories have been finalists for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Award, the BSFA ...

. It was first published in the anthology ''Fast Forward 2''. Doctorow and Rosenbaum subsequently made the story available under the terms of the

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

license.Fast Forward 2: original sf from the cutting edge, including "True Names," a novella by Benjamin Rosenbaum and me!
by

, at

BoingBoing ''Boing Boing'' is a website, first established as a zine in 1988, later becoming a group blog. Common topics and themes include technology, futurism, science fiction, gadgets, intellectual property, Disney, and left-wing politics. It twice won ...

; published December 2, 2008; retrieved May 19, 2019

Synopsis

Beebe and Demiurge are

matrioshka brain A matrioshka brain is a hypothetical megastructure of immense computational capacity powered by a Dyson sphere. It was proposed in 1997 by Robert J. Bradbury (1956–2011). It is an example of a class-B stellar engine, employing the entire energy ...

s, at war with each other as they both try to convert all matter in the universe into

computronium Computronium is a material hypothesized by Norman Margolus and Tommaso Toffoli of MIT in 1991 to be used as "programmable matter", a substrate for computer modeling of virtually any real object. It also refers to a arrangement of matter that is t ...

Receptions

"True Names" was a finalist for the 2009

Hugo Award for Best Novella The Hugo Award for Best Novella is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The novella award is available for works of fiction of between ...

.2009 Hugo Awards
at TheHugoAwards.org; retrieved May 19, 2019 ''

Strange Horizons ''Strange Horizons'' is an online speculative fiction magazine. It also features speculative poetry and nonfiction in every issue, including reviews, essays, interviews, and roundtables. History and profile It was launched in September 2000, and ...

'' praised it as an "exercise in extreme imagination" and a "magnificent display of pre-existing ideas arranged in fabulous geometries and twisted into pleasing, recombinant strategies of exuberance", but nonetheless found it lacking in literary quality, with "stultified" dialogue, and characters whose "behavior comprised more of wide-eyed naivete and sardonic posturing than any real emotion".Fast Foward 2, edited by Lou Anders
reviewed by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro; at ''

''; published November 24, 2008; retrieved May 19, 2019 The ''

Los Angeles Review of Books The ''Los Angeles Review of Books'' (''LARB'' is a literary review magazine covering the national and international book scenes. A preview version launched on Tumblr in April 2011, and the official website followed one year later in April 2012. ...

'' observed that "True Names" "obviously pays homage to (Vernor) Vinge's classic story of that title,"Attack of the Singularity
by Pawel Freilk, in the ''

''; published September 10, 2012; retrieved May 19, 2019 while the ''

SF Site SF may refer to: Locations * San Francisco, California, United States * Sidi Fredj, Algeria * South Florida, an urban region in the United States * Suomi Finland, former vehicular country code for Finland In arts and entertainment Genre ...

'' considered that it "resonate(s) a bit with (Greg) Egan."Incandescence, by Greg Egan
reviewed by Rich Horton, at the ''

''; published 2009; retrieved May 19, 2019

References

{{reflist

External links

Text of the story
at

archive.org The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

Audio of "True Names" (part 1 of 3)
read by Cory Doctorow, at

Audio of "True Names" (part 2 of 3)Audio of "True Names" (part 3 of 3)
Works by Cory Doctorow Science fiction short stories