David Louis Edelman asks a big question over at the author group-blog Deep Genre – when will science fiction end? In his own words: “I’m not asking this from a commercial standpoint so much as from an epistemological standpoint. Will there always be new science fiction? Or will the genre just wither up at some point and go away?” What do you think? Are we so immunised to the exponential curve of technological change that fiction based in extrapolated futures will cease to have any effect on us other than, perhaps, nostalgia?
Australian police boss fears clones and cyborgs
It sounds as if the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police is a science fiction fan – one who takes it a little too seriously. During a recent conference, he suggested that the police forces of the near future will have to deal with a variety of new threats to law and order, ranging from tech-savvy small-time crooks to rogue clones and human-robot hybrids. Personally, I’m not entirely convinced this isn’t just a viral marketing ploy for the forthcoming Blade Runner re-release.
Second Life is hell – classic literature meets the metaverse
Next time someone tells you to go to hell, save yourself the inconvenience of an eternity of torment – check into Second Life, where a recreation of Lucifer’s domain as envisaged by Dante can be explored from the comfort of your favourite computer chair.
Throwing Off The Shackles of Reality
When you think about it, Drew Harry’s got a point. Developing a virtual world that slavishly apes the real is kind of stupid. His meeting spaces arrange people based on their allegiances, representing a person’s expressed opinions by aligning them physically in a wide open space. I don’t know if that’s what I’d choose to emphasize, but giving up the virtual Aeron chair makes sense. [kurzweil]
MySpace For The Literati
The phrase “jump the shark” has probably jumped the shark, but if I can be indulged in its use one last time, I’ll point out that social software has jumped the shark when you need a MySpace for people to talk about books. Or maybe I’m just cranky about the slickness factor: somehow LibraryThing doesn’t set my teeth on edge in the same way. [mefi]