Category: Science Fiction
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the Torment Nexus and the death of satire
If you can look at the technological paradigm of which you consider yourself to be a celebrant, and tell yourself it feels like Douglas Adams, you should be running for the exits (having taken care to take your towel with you, naturally).
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beware and abjure, now and always, ideologies constructed around settlement
Quoting “for truth”, as we used to say—or, perhaps more truthfully, quoting for the almost adrenal relief of reading someone else say something you’ve been thinking/feeling for ages. Jake Casella Brookins takes an end-of-year turn on the mic at Ancillary Review, and it’s quite the blazer: Amidst much larger (and fatuous) claims about the moral…
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who are you trying to impress? McDonald’s Hopeland and skiffy diasporae
It’s yer man ADH, who else? “Space is dead”, sez he: The moon landing happened because capitalism and American empire actually had a rival. These forces had to prove they could outrace, outplan, and outspend communism and Soviet empire. It was probably the biggest PR campaign of all time, if you don’t count our bloated…
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a tool, not a rule: thoughts on technique and worldbuilding
I’m off the the Netherlands next week, to give a couple of talks and run a workshop based on (among other things) the Magrathea Protocol essay. One of these events is public, so if you’re in or near Utrecht on Thursday 21st September (3pm to 5pm), why not come along and ask me awkward questions?…
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a fundamental shift in our understanding of where ecofiction might productively occur
Some interesting thoughts at LARB from one Martin Dolan on open-world games like the new Zelda as ecofictional media. I haven’t played any of the Zelda games—and as I remarked to Jay Springett a while back, I sometimes feel like the only person in the universe who has never been involved with that franchise, though…