You might find this initial pilot for an animated not so far off future, ‘Tranquility Dome’, a lot of fun. The author, Chip Prosser, asked me to take a look and now I am wondering how soon the next episode will be available!
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There was coffee. Life would go on. – William Gibson. The Winter Market. In truth, the anthology Burning Chrome contains some very fine short stories. I tend to think that it is a shame that Gibson gave up publishing stories pretty much immediately after he published his first novel, however iconic that novel might have been. July 14th, 2008 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Oh my God! Jeanette Winterson has written a science fiction novel, The Stone Gods, as a speculation. Nor has she taken the marketing escape of disguising her presence by the addition of the cunning initial. There she is, in plain sight, unadorned, investing the enterprise with the gravitas of her literary reputation. As Ursula K Le Guin remarks, Winterson commits genre. The story appears to involve a parable of our own world, allowing Winterson to derive her own dystopia from Orwell’s tradition of extrapolation. Unleavened by reality or experience, the future is a hell of advertising and reality television. Did she read Pohl and Kornbluth? Whilst Winterson’s themes of abandoned childhood and the nature of adoption inform much of her fiction, this departure allows us to see how literati react to the symbols of ecological disaster and despair. The banal title invokes the destruction of Easter Island as symbol for the future of this Island Earth. What limits the visions of the future that mainstream writers depict as a simplistic outlier. The acceptable vision of the future is the resource crisis, the one that swamps our media daily, and forms the backdrop of Winterson’s love story. The choice of future does not negate the quality of the story, and Winterson serves up a provocative narrative. Yet, does her painted future display a certain narrowness. The degrading and deserving darkness that many prophecy as the outcome of the civilisation they revile is easier to write than the complex and enriched society that few foretell and fewer understand. July 7th, 2008 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
Okay – it’s like this. There’s a tribe living by a river, and in the river there are crocodiles. The tribe has one particular piece of wisdom passed down through the generations. It goes like this: if you happen to meet a crocodile, don’t stick your head in its mouth. Every now and then – and who knows the reason – people ignore this advice. Which is sad. Because they die. But very stupid because they were warned. They had a choice. The moral of this story is – you can’t afford to be stupid. There are crocodiles. – The words of Steven Moffat, as spoken by Julia Sawalha, in the final episode of Press Gang. Few things recently have pleased me as much as the announcement that Moffatt will be the new showrunner of Dr Who. The rumour today is that Neil Gaiman will be writing for the show, too, so there is lots to look forward to. May 28th, 2008 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)
Bryan Appleyard has some interesting things to say about science fiction (hat-tip, Glenn). As a commenter said in the Times’ letters section though, Bryan focuses a little too much on the dystopian side of SF, on science-out-of-control. There are some nice touches though: he is right to examine how SF has affected the course of science, as well as the other way round. The problem with a newspaper article like this, unfortunately, is that you can only really skim the surface of the subject. SF is pretty vast – hey, like the universe itself! There are bound to be vast tracts of land that get overlooked. Appleyard does not mention the more positive, life-affirming side of hard science fiction in the works of people like John Varley or Vernor Vinge, for instance (two of the best writers of the lot, in my opinion). And he barely mentions Arthur C. Clarke, Neal Stephenson, Ken MacLeod and R.A. Heinlein. Mention of the latter, of course, brings us onto the fact that SF has often been quite daringly political; it has used imagined futures to play around with cultural, social and ideal political scenarios (regular readers of this blog will know what I mean, such as The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, or Stephenson’s Snow Crash, etc). But, to be fair to Appleyard, he takes SF seriously. As he points out, there seems to be more interest in fantasy instead: the enormous popularity of Lord of the Rings, Terry Pratchett, being just two examples. Maybe I am missing something, but I have never been interested in that side of the genre. My wife keeps badgering me to read Pratchett. Another sub-genre is what one might call “techno-military” SF; Heinlein wrote some of this in things like Starship Troopers; a good current example are the writings of John Scalzi. Here’s a pretty good dictionary of science fiction. December 7th, 2007 | 27 comments - (Comments are closed)
“I like Canary Wharf. It is where Dr Who fought against the Cybermen.” A friend of mine, who as you can tell, is a Dr Who fanatic. I will never be able to think of London’s new financial district in quite the same way again. July 16th, 2007 | 27 comments - (Comments are closed)
I am an avid reader of science fiction, and the use of futuristic fiction as a source of ideas is a welcome development. The best science fiction is that which explores the boundaries of our concepts whether in the mind, the computer or how we relate to each other. This is one of the advantages of defending the freedom of the mind, the expression of which is usually described as freedom of speech
Whilst DARPA is a useful channel for futuristic ideas, ten percent of a research budget handed over to any project is not such a good idea. Once the institutional apparatus is set up, with a secretariat to flesh out the innovative ideas, and the bureaucratic accretions which turn gold to mud, what will be left. A few nuggets from the civil service quicksand. More useful is the Sigma organisation set up by Andrew Arlen some years ago, if it survives the seductive sirenic call of the public sector:
How unusual that CSI, paraded as an authentic and naturalistic program, can be classified as science fiction, on the grounds that the technology deployed is probably three or five years ahead of our current capabilities. Yet, the same confusion may dazzle the Department of Homeland Security. The politicians will reach for science fictional solutions when actual success probably stems from incremental graft on current processes and clear procurement and privatisation. Research is often touted as a PR solution for public sector problems. Treat this with scepticism. June 10th, 2007 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
“My word, I’m not even a hundred yet.” The last line of Robert A. Heinlein’s masterpiece – arguably his finest book – The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Much has been written about the science fiction maestro. Well, a lot is going to be said and written about the man at the upcoming conference to mark the centenary of his birth. The guest-list is pretty damn impressive, including one of America’s hot science fiction talents, John Scalzi. It seems sadly ironic that Heinlein, a man who wrote memorably about longevity and characters like Lazarus Long, is not still with us. But his ideas and wonderful stories most decidedly are. April 21st, 2007 | 27 comments - (Comments are closed)
Don’t worry, I’m not gonna start any sword fights. I’m over that phase. – Captain Malcolm Reynolds, one of the many fine characters in the television series, Firefly. February 7th, 2007 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
A great secret has been revealed. Personally I think it explains a lot. Brian Micklethwait is really Gully Foyle. February 1st, 2007 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
John Scalzi, a science fiction writer whom I admire and learned about via the blogs, is giving free copies of his books to servicemen and women in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, leaving aside what one thinks of either military campaign, I think this is a grand idea, and I hope and trust that authors, film-makers and musicians do the same. These armed forces personnel are risking their lives and deserve a bit of comfort and support, particularly now when so many people, even “moulting hawks” like me, are doubting the wisdom of military intervention in the Middle East. We put them there, God help us. Scalzi’s first book, Old Man’s War, is definitely worth a read, and the successor, The Ghost Brigades, is also pretty good. If you like Robert Heinlein or Peter Hamilton, for example, you will like Scalzi. I hope he is around for a long time to come. He writes hard science fiction with characters you believe in, can like and admire, warts and all. (Thanks to Alex Knapp for the tip). November 29th, 2006 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
If reality contradicts your thoughts, that’s delusion. If your thoughts contradict your actions, that’s madness. If reality contradicts your actions, that’s defeat, frustration, self-destruction. And no sane being wants delusion, madness and destruction. – From the Golden Transcendence, John C. Wright, page 212 October 16th, 2006 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
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