Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
On Old Earth, it had long been accepted that if a species put mankind on its food-chain menu the species would be extinct before long. As the Web expanded, if a species attempted serious competition with humanity’s intellect, that species would be extinct before the first farcaster opened in-system.
Dan Simmons • Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, Book 1)
torus-shaped
Adrian Tchaikovsky • Children of Time
the engines whose desires push the plot forward.
Rachel Aaron • 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love
Joan D. Vinge wrote about a demarchist society in her enjoyable pacey novel The Outcasts of Heaven Belt.