Mad fantasy-fic idea: what if even death is no escape from the law, and contracts signed in life remain binding after shuffling off this mortal coil?

[pilotmoondog@social.linux.pizza]

@cstross I think that was the point of the original Haitian zombie myth. Slavery continues, even after death.

[tarah@infosec.exchange]

@LordWoolamaloo @cstross came here to say this.

[a_cubed@mastodon.social]

@cstross
There's something of this in Max Gladstone's Craft sequences.

[mainframed767@infosec.exchange]

@cstross ah, a fantasy version of RoboCop

[redmeepleryan@dice.camp]

@cstross Just when you thought you were out, iteas for a Laundry Files anthology pull you back in. *chuckles darkly*

[usmu@kind.social]

@HmFons @cstross

Came here to say this.

[thepdog@mas.to]

@cstross Great concept. Maybe after you finish your sequel?

[remittancegirl@mstdn.social]

@cstross I like it. It's got legs!

[nonya_bidniss@infosec.exchange]

@cstross While this idea is quite different, for some reason it reminded me of the Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. Series by Kevin J. Anderson, which I enjoyed quite a lot & wished there was more of.

[flippac@types.pl]

@cstross You're pretty close to the world of The Craft Cycle and Craft Wars books, ofc

[martinvermeer@fediscience.org]

@xChaos @moira @cstross In Dutch even the same word: schuld.

[mattkenworthy@mastodon.social]

@electropict This is very close to Vernor Vinge's novella "The Cookie Monster" : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cookie_Monster_(novella)

[dsurkin@mastodon.social]

@cstross Iain M. Banks had a novel ("Surface Detail") about a planet that enforced post-life hell by digitalizing a person's memories and personality and then installing it in a computer-generated sim of hell.

[kruku@mastodon.bida.im]

@angusm @cstross
Should we ever be able to map individual human consciousness, including memories, completely and accurately from human brains the notion of a "debtor's Hell" could become a reality, at least as far as using human minds as computers for unpaid labour is concerned.

[oddhack@mstdn.social]

@cstross only a small step from holding your descendants responsible for your debt, which has been and sometimes still is a thing in the Former US, at least.

[geeksam@ruby.social]

@xinit @cstross Also something from what's his name that did Buffy and Angel. At least one character in the show (and one in the comic) had contracts with Wolfram & Hart that continued post mortem.

[xinit@mastodon.coffee]

@dsurkin Are we all in that now? Or maybe just me?

@cstross

[cstross@wandering.shop]

@dsurkin Yes, I have a signed first edition copy. (It also has a thinly-disguised Elon Musk style entrepreneur who buys up all the bankrupt hells and runs hells as a software service on behalf of their creators.)

[max@smeap.com]

@a_cubed @cstross More than a little. The underlying magic system of the series keeps pointing out new ways that *all* of its magic is “just” contract law, even the powers of deities and volcanoes and the weather and…

It’s a wild premise that keeps leading to wilder books

[mjj@mstdn.dk]

@Astronomy_A2Z @cstross That is basically what happens to me at work wheneverI have had a heavy lunch.
A resurrection effort around 1 PM.