I'm looking for a short story, perhaps in a volume of Year's Best SF or The Year's Best Science Fiction that involves "Time Tower minds" which have a stretched consciousness across time, allowing an approximation of prescience, though with negative impact on sanity.
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I think I've read this. The protagonist was quite surprised to learn that one of the consequences of these supercomputers was insanity or depression for those who worked around them. In the end he taught them Zen(?) and everyone who worked near them became unnaturally calm– ValorumCommented Feb 24, 2023 at 19:03
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2It seems a long shot, but there is a very strange story called Grist by Tony Daniel that has humans referred to as Time Towers. They can see the future to some extent and they're all two books short of a trilogy. But it's a very strange story. It was in The Year's Best Science Fiction 16th Annual Collection, though I first read it in the anthology Supermen Tales of the Posthuman Future. Let me know if you think this is it and I'll post it as an answer.– John RennieCommented Feb 24, 2023 at 19:58
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That is the one! You are a star!– colintdCommented Feb 24, 2023 at 20:21
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I remember now it is also in his collection of short stories "The robot's twilight companion" and includes the very good "A dry, quiet war". Thanks again.– colintdCommented Feb 24, 2023 at 20:29
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1 Answer
This is Grist by Tony Daniel. It was published in in The Year's Best Science Fiction 16th Annual Collection as you remembered, though I first read it in the anthology Supermen Tales of the Posthuman Future.
Goodreads summarises the story as:
The Grist is the goo of life that links humanity with the collective consciousness of every living thing. Andre Sud, itinerant priest and expert rock balancer, searches for the Large Array Personality (LAP) known as Thaddeus Kaye, who threatens the delicate balance of interstellar events with his suspected ability to control the future.
But it's a lot stranger than that. It's laid out as a number of apparently unconnected sub-stories one of which involves a family of rats as I recall. The Time Towers were an experiment in post humanism that largely failed, though one of them, Thaddeus Kaye, has acquired powers that have become dangerous.
answered Feb 25, 2023 at 5:45
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I've just reread the story, and it is entirely as strange as I remember. It will be interesting to see what the two following novels are like...– colintdCommented Feb 25, 2023 at 9:35