All posts by Paul Raven

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Storm botnet turns its hand to writing fiction

lightning strikeHere’s a new twist in the ongoing saga of the Storm worm spam network – it has started delivering fiction into our inboxes. [via Bruce Sterling]

Not science fiction, sadly – that’d make for an even better headline – but fake news headlines. Perhaps in response to people slowly wising up to email subject-lines about fake Rolex watches and “spec14l blu3 p1ll 4 b3dr00m”, the botnet is now replacing them with specious news stories about non-existent natural disasters and celebrity mishaps:

“The emails contain such headlines as ‘Eiffel Tower damaged by massive earthquake’ and ‘Donald Trump missing, feared kidnapped.'”

Pitching for the schadenfreude market, then … we’ll be able to judge the effectiveness of this new tactic by watching for how long they keep using it. [image by El Garza]

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Kelly and Eno’s Unthinkable Futures – ready-made science fiction scenarios

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Depressed thinker statueMaybe you noticed it when it cropped up on BoingBoing last week, but having re-read it a few times I thought I’d point out Kevin Kelly and Brian Eno’s Unthinkable Futures. [image by fabiovenni]

Kelly and Eno used to make a game of dreaming up the unthinkable futures of the title as an exercise to loosen their minds, and this list of them was originally published fifteen years ago. It’s a fascinating read for three reasons. Firstly, for the scenarios that are even more untenable now than they were in 1993:

  • Smoking is proven to be good exercise for the lungs.

Secondly, for the scenarios that have either already happened or become inevitable:

  • Nobody wants to be a doctor. It becomes an over-whelming bureaucratic job with low status. Women and minorities become working doctors; men do medical research. [Certainly becoming the case here in the UK]
  • Video phones inspire a new sexual revolution whereby everybody sits at home doing rude things electronically with everyone else. Productivity slumps; video screens get bigger and bigger. [Nuff said]
  • A new type of artist arises: someone whose task is to gather together existing but overlooked pieces of amateur art, and, by directing attention onto them, to make them important. [Blogging, anyone?]

And thirdly, for the scenarios which are the core nugget of a great science fiction story waiting to be written – which is most of them, to be honest, though some more obviously than others:

  • Software gains allow a certain portion of taxes to fall to the discretion of the payer. John Public can assign X amount of his taxes toward one service, to the exclusion of another. It’s a second vote that politicians watch closely. [Bruce Sterling needs to write this one]
  • Traveling as a process enjoys a revival. People abandon the idea of “getting from A to B” and begin to develop (or re-discover) a culture of traveling: semi-nomadism. Lots of people acquire super new faxed-and-modemed versions of the mobile home. It becomes distinctly “lower-class” to live in a fixed location. Fast forms of transport come to be viewed like fast food is viewed now — tacky, undesirable, fake.

It’s a goldmine, go take a look. And I reckon we can play this game just as well ourselves – leave your own Unthinkable Future in the comments!

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Help re-imagine Project Orion – nuclear space propulsion in the noughties

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NASA\'s Project Orion - concept artIf you’re in need of something to bring a bit of excitement to your Tuesday (and let’s face it, who isn’t?), maybe you’d like to get involved with re-thinking the idea of launching space missions using the Project Orion model – in other words, the sixties concept space vehicle propelled by small nuclear explosions. [image courtesy NASA via Wikimedia Commons]

No, that’s a genuine NASA concept. And this is a genuine request; the following email turned up in the Futurismic contact inbox over the weekend from one Peter Queckenstedt:

“My name is Peter, I’m a Canadian designer, currently studying for my master’s in transportation design at the Umea Institute in Sweden.

I’m doing some advance work on my upcoming final degree project, and thought Futurismic might be able to aid me. My plan is to revive the idea of Project Orion, the atomic bomb-propelled ship designed in the 60s. My focus is not so much on the engineering side, but more on the ‘blue-sky’ ideas side. I want to explore what kind of changes 50 years of technology would make to this craft. My main intent is to get people excited about the idea of sending people into space in a serious manner.

If you know of anyone that might be interested in collaborating, sponsoring, or providing inspiration and input please let me know. Engineers, fiction writers, artists, mad scientists, bloggers … I’m open to anything as long as it’s interesting.”

There you have it, folks – if you fancy getting your crowdsource on and thinking about nuclear-powered rockets, now’s your chance! I think the best way to do this would be for you to leave a comment below if you’re interested in helping out, making sure to use a valid email address which I can then forward on to Peter.

But feel free to share ideas at the same time – for example, is Project Orion any more or less reasonable a suggestion now we’ve had five more decades of experience with nuclear power and weapons, not to mention the economic cost of space exploration?

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Friday Free Fiction for 20th June

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Greetings! Apologies in advance may be in order; I’m out of town at the moment (on a course about sf literary criticism, as it happens), and so I’ve had to collate as much of this week’s Friday Free Fiction as possible on Thursday afternoon, so there may be some blinding omissions if I haven’t had the time and resources to sit down with an internet connection since then.

Anything I’ve missed will end up in next week’s collection, but feel free to share any exciting discoveries in the comments. Now, let’s see what we’ve got …

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Here’s a bunch from ManyBooks.net:

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A fist-full from FeedBooks:

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I think this has been available for some time, but I don’t remember linking it before, so here’s a short story from Gwyneth Jones‘ Bold As Love universe – “Big Cat”

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Just because Shadow Unit‘s first season is over doesn’t mean everything has gone silent over there. On the contrary – summertime is “DVD extras” season, one piece every second Sunday. First up is “Vigil“, penned by Elizabeth Bear.

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Scalzi had a tip-off to part of this haul, but it was Gary Gibson who pointed out that Lewis Shiner is cheerfully uploading every piece of fiction he’s ever written to be read for free at his website.

There’s a lot there already … and but you can subscribe via RSS if you want to keep on top of new material. And you can find out why he’s doing it in his Fiction Liberation Front manifesto – right on, Comrade Shiner!

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Via io9 we discover that:

“In The Garden Of Iden, Kage Baker‘s fantastic novel about time-traveling cyborgs who work for the 24th century Company, is available as a free download. Five-year-old Mendoza is about to be tortured to death as a Jew in the Spanish Inquisition, when she’s rescued by the Company and turned into a time-traveling operative — but her first assignment is to the 16th century, uncomfortably close to her own time. It’s available in PDF, HTML, or Mobi formats.”

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If you’re reading this, it means I didn’t have time (or net access) enough to pick up this week’s contributions from the Friday Flash Fictioneers, but I’m sure they’ll provide links to their pieces in the comments. If not, I’ll mash them in with next week’s round-up.

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Well, that’s all from me this time. Keep your plugs and tip-offs coming, and I hope you all have as stimulating a weekend as I’ll to be having!

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Get hitched in sub-orbital space

Getting married is all about making your day as special as possible, right? Well, if you’ve got the cash and you don’t intend to tie the knot until 2011, you might want to think ahead and book your service with SpaceWedding, who promise to fly you to over 100km above the surface of the planet while you exchange your vows. [via Pink Tentacle] [image from SpaceWedding website]

Space Wedding logo

But, like I say, you’ll need a fairly hefty amount of money. The service costs the equivalent of US$2.2million … though that does include:

“… the cost of transportation to and from the launch site, accommodations, a live broadcast of the ceremony to friends and family at a reception hall on the ground, and 4 days of rehearsal.”

A bargain! If anyone needs a ring-bearer, drop me a line via the contact page, OK?