Anyone know of good technology based 'rags to riches'. Something like
https://storiesonline.net/s/75651/a-new-past
although not necessarily a DoOver, just the MC using inventions or industry (as opposed to playing the stock market or art or winning the lottery or inheriting stuff) to go from Rags to riches.
It doesn't matter if the technology is real or not, but it should be realistic in the story and treated as a technology to be developed, not magic handed to the MC.
Several stories by FantasyLover involve a person that through a combination of being in the right place at the right time and hard work goes from rags to riches.
Some that meet that criteria
Lucky Jim 1 (The other three in the Lucky Jim universe include a rich family even if the individual themself is not wealthy.)
Escape From Lexington - Starts out similar to Lucky Jim 1.
The Goatherd
Spirit Quest - Time travel is involved.
A Terran Trader on Toolondo - starts out not exactly poor becomes obscenely rich by the end.
Two and a Half Bitches
Earl's Man
Of Honor and Betrayal
Several stories by FantasyLover involve a person that through a combination of being in the right place at the right time and hard work goes from rags to riches.
I'm familiar with FantasyLover, but I don't think any of those stories involve technology as a central element.
I'm familiar with FantasyLover, but I don't think any of those stories involve technology as a central element.
After thinking a bit more about them, most don't really fit the bill. Two of them do though.
In Spirit Quest the MC basically starts the industrial revolution over 1000 years 'early'. While much of his wealth comes from either mines that he knows about or combat, in the later at least many of his victories come from weapons he brings to Europe or develops from his notes.
A Terran Trader on Toolondo - the MC develops a method to travel faster in Space which makes him more successful as a trader. Other technologies he develops keeps him alive.
After thinking a bit more about them, most don't really fit the bill. Two of them do though.
I seem to have missed A Terran Trader on Toolondo somehow, thanks for pointing it out. Spirit Quest is one of those stories that everything I've heard about makes me think if I manage to get past the start I'll enjoy it but so far the start has proven too effective a barrier for me. I might give it another try.
You might like https://storiesonline.net/s/75651/a-new-past by https://storiesonline.net/a/Charlie_Foxtrot It's pretty good.
Lonny
You might like https://storiesonline.net/s/75651/a-new-past by https://storiesonline.net/a/Charlie_Foxtrot It's pretty good.
I take it you missed the link in my post? I agree that it's a very good story, I'm hoping to finds others like it.
https://storiesonline.net/s/54677/rebirth
Do-over where the MC was an entrepreneur / electrical engineer IIRC. Proceeds to 'invent' a lot of tech 10 years early.
https://storiesonline.net/s/53355/pauls-redemption
Do-over where the MC is a loner genius. Goes back in time to the '60s. 'Invents'the laser, spoilers on F1 Cars, etc.
It's a nice story but not really about technology - the MC gets handed everything with no research or development.
My "Country Boy, City Girl" actually involves a lot of that in the last half.
https://storiesonline.net/s/17259/country-boy-city-girl
Largely a guy who in the mid-1980s starts making some good moves in marketing and selling computers, then jumps into the early stages of "Online communications", first by making and hosting bulletin boards for companies (mostly the porn industry), then is one of the first to jump onto hosting an ISP.
Then towards the end, doing what a lot of those early people did (I knew a few). EarthLink in the mid 1990s was paying almost stupid amounts of money to buy up small local ISPs, then using that as their first entry into a new market. They literally bought up hundreds of them, and that became their initial foothold into a new market area.
At one time I literally went through 3 different ISPs in six months, because another one would buy them up, then get bought out by somebody even bigger.
My first ISP was literally one a friend who like me ran a BBS ran out of his garage had for about a year. Then he got bought out by a company that was actually called "Internet in a mall" in 1996, because it really had kiosks in California shopping malls to get new customers. Which was then a year later bought out by Earthlink in 1997 for around $17 million.
Thanks for link, I forgot about that aspect of the story, I guess that means I need to reread it :)
Thanks for link, I forgot about that aspect of the story, I guess that means I need to reread it :)
Yes, I can understand as it was a big focus, but not overwhelmingly I do not think. Plus I had a lot of fun covering that brief period of time in computers, from around 1988 to around 1995. A hell of a lot changed very quickly, and so much is now pretty much gone.
But a lot of people were like Pete, and simply made the right decisions at the right time. And it was such a new technology that it changed very fast, and you really had to keep up with it. For example, from the 1970s to the late 1980s, modem speeds went from 300 to 2400 bps. But in the 1990s we jumped to 9600, then all the way to 56k by the end of the decade. For some of us, it almost seemed like every year we were replacing our modems for the newest standard.
If you count riches to riches there is SmokingDriver's Nick High School
Nick is at the start of the computer age and creates a software company, he was already a very wealthy man.
for a well thought out do over
Hindsight 20/20
Richard Jackson in the eponymous saga by banadin/Ed Nelson becomes quite wealthy, partly (mostly) due to inventions.
Try Jay Cantrell's Daze in the Valley. A student going from surviving a semester on less than $100, to owning and running a multimillion dollar company along with his housemates, by a mixture of changed work practices and developed technology.
ETA: O.K., the new tech. is developed by the housemates, but the enabling of this is done by the MC.
Hyperactive Alex by zaliterr
https://storiesonline.net/s/58785/hyperactive-alex
https://storiesonline.net/a/zaliterr
The Future of Miss Powers by Lazlo Zalezac
https://storiesonline.net/s/13830/the-future-of-miss-powers
https://storiesonline.net/a/lazlo-zalezac
