Greg Egan's author site.
The full text of Egan's novella "Oceanic."
World-building at one scale. And at another.
Philip K. Dick's lecture: "How to Build a Universe..."
An earlier, much-noted work with a gendered novum.
SF as experiment.
Sex and gender can change.
Famous people named Martin. Famous people named Daniel.
Not quite, but not unrelated to, the beliefs on Covenant.
Diving right in.
Not this kind of bridge.
The argument from design.
Faith isn't an argument.
Is it a chemical?
Review: the science-fictional triangle whose points are explanation, and wonder and warnings about the unknowable or unknown.
Review: sf as experiment, real world and realist fiction as controls.
Review: the novum. Novums within novums.
Review: the idea of genres and subgenres, which branch out over time.
One particularly reflexive subgenre.
Review: sf asks about historical change.
SF also asks about an afterlife.
A new story, "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling," by Ted Chiang.
"Liking What You See" helped inspire influential YA SF.
"Story of Your Life" is somehow becoming a Hollywood movie.
An interview with Chiang.
Louise is a reader.
Fiction as face.
Fiction as mirror.
People who misunderstood Hopi.
Nietzschean Eternal Return.
Ideas about characters.
Narrative usually works like that. Real life works like that.
What if we could see our lives like that?
Monday, November 30, 2015
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Stalker QOTD
A song about a dog. Some sacred music.
Why the black dog? Why animals, and where?
Did Stalker hallucinate everything? Why are there syringes?
Is this SF or fantasy? Is the Zone the nouum? Is the novum cognitively explicable?
Why did it have to be a film?
Why the speeches to the camera? Why the wife's speech?
"Why the constant almost breaking of the fourth wall?"
What's the role of Monkey, Stalker's daughter?
Why the crown of thorns? Why the water?
Does the film resist empiricism? or "go beyond" it?
Is the film about a children's game?
Why did the movie have to be so looooong?
Why the black dog? Why animals, and where?
Did Stalker hallucinate everything? Why are there syringes?
Is this SF or fantasy? Is the Zone the nouum? Is the novum cognitively explicable?
Why did it have to be a film?
Why the speeches to the camera? Why the wife's speech?
"Why the constant almost breaking of the fourth wall?"
What's the role of Monkey, Stalker's daughter?
Why the crown of thorns? Why the water?
Does the film resist empiricism? or "go beyond" it?
Is the film about a children's game?
Why did the movie have to be so looooong?
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
New media fictions, and a few more stories: Noon, Egan, Anders, Walton, Ryman
"You've become a ghost" (Masters of the Obvious)
Charlie Jane Anders's "Six Months, Three Days."
Anders's story "Love Might Be Too Strong a Word." CJA's day job.
I have been asked to show you this super villain. And yes, of course superhero comics are science fiction. Here's my favorite right now.
About the Angel of the North. Looking right at the Angel.
Jo Walton's sad meta-sf.
Walton's less sad, book-length meta-sf, also reviewed by Le Guin.
SF is time travel: forwards, backwards and sideways, including alternate histories.
SF is also an http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/fire-emergency-escape-ladder-13664131.jpg">escape from history.
The Hitler wins topos/trope/meme. The map of America in the most famous Hitler wins story, now a TV show too.
SF is an experiment whose control is not just the real world; it's also other genres.
You can experiment with alternate phenotypes, but also with alternate language.
An earlier innovation in physical substrate that clearly affected what sf writers did.
An even earlier innovation.
Egan's "Black Box," Paste Magazine online version.
Egan's "Black Box" in the original Twitter version thanks to Storify.
The New Yorker interviews Egan about "Black Box."
To read the famous or infamous PowerPoint chapter from Egan's novel A Visit from the Goon Squad, go to her own main site and click on the extreme right-hand label "Great Rock and Roll Pauses." You may also be able to view the chapter here.
More material from and about Egan's novel A Visit from the Goon Squad.
A story about spies. Another story about ghosts.
You can go back to your body, or you can end up in the night sky.
Joe Winkler's Twitter-style review of Egan's "Black Box."
Nick Montfort (and collaborators') interactive fiction. His monograph (2003-05) on interactive fiction.
The first widely influential interactive fiction.
Planetfall, by John Burnett. Burnett's main site. (Warning: may start audio automatically.)
Jeff Noon's Metamorphiction main site.
Noon's Microspores, main site.
Noon's Microspore 05: "This machine consists of twenty-six..."
The ghostly feel of obsolete or obsolescent technology.
Noon's Sparkletown and The Fog Catchers.
Noon's source story for "spore:Mix."
Noon's instructions for remixed fiction.
The @jeffnoon Twitter feed. The @echovirus12 feed.
An interview with Noon, from a zine in London.
Why is Mab called Mab?
Love might be… Petrarchism. Or it might be a lot of other things that turn you on.
A vivid dream, with another angel.
Charlie Jane Anders's "Six Months, Three Days."
Anders's story "Love Might Be Too Strong a Word." CJA's day job.
I have been asked to show you this super villain. And yes, of course superhero comics are science fiction. Here's my favorite right now.
About the Angel of the North. Looking right at the Angel.
Jo Walton's sad meta-sf.
Walton's less sad, book-length meta-sf, also reviewed by Le Guin.
SF is time travel: forwards, backwards and sideways, including alternate histories.
SF is also an http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/fire-emergency-escape-ladder-13664131.jpg">escape from history.
The Hitler wins topos/trope/meme. The map of America in the most famous Hitler wins story, now a TV show too.
SF is an experiment whose control is not just the real world; it's also other genres.
You can experiment with alternate phenotypes, but also with alternate language.
An earlier innovation in physical substrate that clearly affected what sf writers did.
An even earlier innovation.
Egan's "Black Box," Paste Magazine online version.
Egan's "Black Box" in the original Twitter version thanks to Storify.
The New Yorker interviews Egan about "Black Box."
To read the famous or infamous PowerPoint chapter from Egan's novel A Visit from the Goon Squad, go to her own main site and click on the extreme right-hand label "Great Rock and Roll Pauses." You may also be able to view the chapter here.
More material from and about Egan's novel A Visit from the Goon Squad.
A story about spies. Another story about ghosts.
You can go back to your body, or you can end up in the night sky.
Joe Winkler's Twitter-style review of Egan's "Black Box."
Nick Montfort (and collaborators') interactive fiction. His monograph (2003-05) on interactive fiction.
The first widely influential interactive fiction.
Planetfall, by John Burnett. Burnett's main site. (Warning: may start audio automatically.)
Jeff Noon's Metamorphiction main site.
Noon's Microspores, main site.
Noon's Microspore 05: "This machine consists of twenty-six..."
The ghostly feel of obsolete or obsolescent technology.
Noon's Sparkletown and The Fog Catchers.
Noon's source story for "spore:Mix."
Noon's instructions for remixed fiction.
The @jeffnoon Twitter feed. The @echovirus12 feed.
An interview with Noon, from a zine in London.
Why is Mab called Mab?
Love might be… Petrarchism. Or it might be a lot of other things that turn you on.
A vivid dream, with another angel.
Monday, November 2, 2015
London and Zoline QOTD
1. Is Zoline SF?
2. How can Zoline be SF?
3. I loved Zoline but is it really SF?
4. Why did anyone think Zoline was SF?
5. Is Zoline's society ours? Is it all a trap?
1. Does Jack London hate poor people?
2. Does Jack London hate Native Americans?
3. Is London warning us about germs and contagion?
4. To what subgenres does London's story belong?
4. Are we meant to regret the collapse of civilization?
Civilization's dying. She doesn't have political views.
2. How can Zoline be SF?
3. I loved Zoline but is it really SF?
4. Why did anyone think Zoline was SF?
5. Is Zoline's society ours? Is it all a trap?
1. Does Jack London hate poor people?
2. Does Jack London hate Native Americans?
3. Is London warning us about germs and contagion?
4. To what subgenres does London's story belong?
4. Are we meant to regret the collapse of civilization?
Civilization's dying. She doesn't have political views.
Sunday, November 1, 2015
Jack London; Pamela Zoline and the New Wave
Quite a lot of Jack London online, through Sonoma State Univ.
The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, as photographed by (possibly) London himself.
More earthquake: SF City Hall after the quake and fire, again in a photo that may be by London himself.
Attractive pack animals. Violent but attractive herd animals. The results of predation.
Can you live off the dry terrain in much of California?
West Coast beaches and the end of humanity (Shell Beach, Sonoma County).
"The Scarlet Plague" in a new, better academic edition online.
More of London's sf. His famous book-length proto-fascist dystopia.
London was in some ways against white supremacy, but in some ways horrifyingly racist.
"The fleeting systems lapse like foam."
"The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry.
A history of New Worlds magazine. (Click links for covers.)
Another contributor to NW: Eduardo Paolozzi. More Paolozzi.
Order and entropic disorder. Another order and entropic disorder.
Another order and disorder.
"How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth?"
Hands can't be clean. The word incarnadine.
A symbol for older SF.
Dr. Weiner's neighborhood.
The world will end in fire and/or ice.
The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, as photographed by (possibly) London himself.
More earthquake: SF City Hall after the quake and fire, again in a photo that may be by London himself.
Attractive pack animals. Violent but attractive herd animals. The results of predation.
Can you live off the dry terrain in much of California?
West Coast beaches and the end of humanity (Shell Beach, Sonoma County).
"The Scarlet Plague" in a new, better academic edition online.
More of London's sf. His famous book-length proto-fascist dystopia.
London was in some ways against white supremacy, but in some ways horrifyingly racist.
"The fleeting systems lapse like foam."
"The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry.
A history of New Worlds magazine. (Click links for covers.)
Another contributor to NW: Eduardo Paolozzi. More Paolozzi.
Order and entropic disorder. Another order and entropic disorder.
Another order and disorder.
"How Many Children Had Lady Macbeth?"
Hands can't be clean. The word incarnadine.
A symbol for older SF.
Dr. Weiner's neighborhood.
The world will end in fire and/or ice.
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