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Fine Structure, the story Sam Hughes wrote before Ra, is also really good: http://qntm.org/structure

Fine Structure was fun. However, it seemed to take several weird turns without warning, but acted like they weren't weird turns, just completely normal. Like brain-uploading suddenly appearing in the middle of one chapter. It felt a lot like the author had proven to himself previously that brain-uploading was logically inevitable in the real world and so there was no need to foreshadow it at all.

Transhumanists tend to share… uncommon assumptions. I for one don't feel that mind-uploading is weird. If we don't blow up ourselves before, its eventual rise is near certain.

The lack of foreshadowing probably wouldn't have shocked me. I'd be very excited about how the author deals with the implications, though: while mind-uploading is relatively mundane, its consequences are huge.

In the context of the story, information is a substance that you can almost shovel around like snow. Brain-uploading isn't an inevitability in the real world but in Fine Structure it's a (relatively) simple application of informational plumbing.

I second Fine Structure. Sam Hughes does excellent short stories too, this one's appeared on HN before, and was how I was introduced to his writing: http://qntm.org/responsibility

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