All posts by Paul Raven

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Eric Drexler launches Metamodern blog

Portrait of K Eric DrexlerI dare say a lot of you will have seen this already, but for the rest: Eric “Engines of Creation” Drexler has launched his own blog, Metamodern. [image courtesy Wikimedia Commons]

Drexler is one of the leading thinkers in molecular nanotech, so there’s one reason to follow along and see what he has to say. But Drexler has more to offer:

Metamodern isn’t intended to be “a blog about nanotechnology”; its scope includes broader issues involving technologies with world-changing potential. For example, looking well downstream in technology development, I will sketch the requirements for large-scale systems able to restore the atmosphere to its pre-industrial composition. Closer to hand, social software and the computational infrastructure of our society are high on the list.

I think we can safely assume that Futurismic readers will find something of interest in his output.

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Electric Velocipede and Night Shade Books get it on

Electric Velocipede cover art for double-issue 15 and 16Great news for genre fiction fans of all stripes: Night Shade Books are teaming up with the excellent short fiction and poetry magazine Electric Velocipede. You can read the whole press release announcement if you like, but I’ll pick out the following part for those of Futurismic‘s readers resident in the US:

In celebration of this momentous alliance, Night Shade Books and Electric Velocipede are proud to announce a subscription drive: sign up for a one year subscription or renewal, and we’ll send you your choice of any two in-print Night Shade paperbacks or trade hardcovers! Just list your selections in the comments field when placing your order. Sorry, this offer applies only to United States subscribers only.

That’s a pretty good deal right there; Night Shade have put out some great novels and collections (I particularly recommend Walter Jon Williams‘ Implied Spaces), and Electric Velocipede has never disappointed me in the two years I’ve been a subscriber.

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Is “sci-fi” still a dirty word?

The gals and guys over at io9 have reheated the perennial debate of whether or not ‘science fiction’ is an accurate or useful descriptive name for the genre, with a side excursion into ‘is it OK to say sci-fi?’

As pointed out by plenty of commenters there, it’s not really a very important question. However, I am unable to get on my high horse about it, because I do tend to get sniffy when people who don’t know anything about the genre beyond Trek and Wars dismiss my book collection as ‘sci-fi’… and don’t get me started on people who say “oh, proper science fiction… like Heroes, yeah?” [image by Jim Linwood]

But from a marketing perspective, there’s a worthwhile question at the root of the debate: is the label of science fiction (however you contract or recast it) a kiss of commercial death? The massive success of Michael Chabon’s Yiddish Policemen’s Union – very carefully not marketed as science fiction, but embraced by the genre scene nonetheless – seems to suggest that the public can stomach the material of the genre.

So maybe it’s the internecine bitching over ephemera that puts them off?

Blog

Friday Free Fiction for 5th December

It’s the first Friday Free Fiction of the month, which means that lots of webzines have new issues full to bursting of good stuff for you to read. So let’s get to it, eh?

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Here’s a mixed bag of old and new from the nice folk at Feedbooks:

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New stories at Clarkesworld:

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New stories at Apex Online:

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Polu Texni presents “Running Free” by Mark Sherwood

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Strange Horizons presents “The Same Old Story” by Naomi Bloch

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One new piece and one classic at SpaceWesterns:

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New pieces at Lone Star Stories:

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An update from Subterranean Online:

… we’ve just posted a couple of treats for readers — “Spring Training,” by Mike Resnick, being the latest adventure starring everyone’s favorite scalawag, the Reverend Doctor Lucifer Jones, and “The Seed of Lost Souls“, part of the long sold out chapbook that includes the story that was to become Poppy Z. Brite’s acclaimed first novel.

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Fantasy & Science Fiction has posted Charles Coleman Finlay‘s “We Come Not to Praise Washington“. (This news via SF Signal; no-one has actually thought to blog this at F&SF as of yet, apparently. *shrug*)

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Tor.com presents “The Film-makers of Mars” by Geoff Ryman

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Via BoingBoing and SF Signal (and Futurismic reader OldMiser in the comments of my review of Fast Forward 2): the collaborative story “True Names” by Benjamin Rosenbaum and Cory Doctorow can now be found online for your reading delectation. It’s a long story with lots of crazy stuff in it, so strap yourself in for a wild ride.

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A message from Jake Freivald:

This issue of Flash Fiction Online has only one new piece of speculative fiction, this one a little fantasy called “Shelter”, though there are some other fresh pieces of different genres.

I also published a Classic Flash from 1960, though — one of my favorite early flash pieces. It’s called “Earthmen Bearing Gifts” by Fredric Brown.

Cheers, Jake!

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Here’s the stuff that we’d have missed if not for the fiction-sifting internet baleen of the SF Signal hivemind:

  • The Eldritch Dark [website] has a large collection of [Lovecraft contemporary] Clark Ashton Smith stories and poems for online reading as well as audio versions of some stories
  • Reflections Edge has its December issue out with fiction by Angela Ambroz, Stephanie Green, Huw Langridge, and K V Taylor

Plus the Signallers have a humongous list of the latest additions to the Free Speculative Fiction list site, which should keep you busy well past New Year’s.

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And last but not least, a fistful of Friday Flash Fiction:

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And there we have it – that should keep you busy for a while. In the meantime, send us your tips, plugs, blatant self-aggrandisement and digital brickbats – Futurismic‘s your site too, y’know. Have a great weekend!