Category: Reading Journal
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Animals, stuffed : Vandermeer (2021), Hummingbird Salamander
Against a backdrop of ongoing ecological and social collapse, one woman—a security consultant of sorts, though not that sort of security—loses her grip on her job, family and life after she responds to the provocation of a note pressed into her hand as she exits a coffee-shop. The note points Jane toward Silvina, the somewhat…
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Origin story: Lessing (1979), Shikasta
Shikasta was not entirely what I expected—or even partly what I expected at first, to be quite honest. Lessing’s first “science fiction” novel starts off as something of a clunky jumble, but eventually clarifies into a variant of the Shaggy God Story, the trope where the state of the modern world is explained as being…
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Keep calm and carry on: Shute (1957), On the Beach
“No imagination whatsoever,” remarked the scientist. “It’s the same with all you service people. ‘That can’t happen to me’.” He paused. “But it can. And it certainly will.” “I suppose I haven’t got any imagination,” said Peter thoughtfully. “It’s—it’s the end of the world. I’ve never had to imagine anything like that before.” p89 Shute…
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contract/bridge: Auger (2013), Speculative design: crafting the speculation
Auger, J. (2013). Speculative design: crafting the speculation. Digital Creativity, 24(1), 11-35. This justly well-cited paper is in some respects a tour through the work of Auger and others (mostly RCA-aligned, I think?) in the decade prior to its publication in 2013. My purpose in writing it up is to extract and summarise the methodological…