Ken MacLeod's Blog, page 23

Paging Lucy Stone

Pyr now have a page up for The Restoration Game and it reminds me of how it all began. In September 2006 Carol and I were waiting for a flight, outside Queenstown airport in New Zealand, when we heard several calls over the PA for a passenger called Lucy Stone. We wondered who she was and why she hadn't turned up and who was looking for her.

Carol looked at me and said: 'That sounds like the start of a novel.'

Being a writer, I wrote it down in a little black book.

That incident is not the only one in The Restoration Game that's based on something that actually happened. Here's another.

In the second chapter, 'The Caucasian Heiress', there's a party in a flat in Edinburgh in 1979, which actually happened three or four years earlier, in Glasgow. A very different long conversation took place on that very sofa in the front hall, between me and Carol. I was really taken with her, but Carol was going out with someone else at the time, and I was just getting over someone, and ... that was it, just a long conversation. I felt very down the following day. I only by chance met Carol again in London in 1979, by which time I'd long forgotten the girl at the party. We only realised a few years ago that that party in Glasgow was when we'd first met, when we were both reminiscing and independently and simultaneously realised: 'Oh! That was you!'

And in that same front hall, in a moment of idle curiosity in 1976, I'd opened a dusty brown envelope addressed to a previous occupant (long gone but ... OK, OK ...) and found to my amazement and amusement an Annual Report of the Ural Caspian Oil Company, all of whose holdings had - it said there in black and white - been 'nationalised by the revolutionary government of Soviet Russia in 1919', but which was still issuing annual reports to shareholders (Dividends for the year: £0.00, yet again) and was still holding out for getting the Caucasian oil-fields back.

I had a dark chuckle about this and thought how quaint and yet how telling it was that these shareholders - the capitalist class in the most literal, prosaic, business-like sense - still hadn't got over the Russian Revolution. They were still in the restoration game.

A little over a year later, and quite without realising it, I was in the same game. And that's in the book, too.

Apart from that it's all science fiction. Really.

Onward into the virch

After 'The Vorkuta Event', another dark tale: my short story 'Earth Hour' is (for US readers at least) now available as a Tor.com Original, and from Amazon Kindle with a notably snazzy cover and a bargain price of all of $0.99 for 5,477 words. [Updated And free to read at Tor.com from 22 June!]It's a dark tale because of its two or three gruesome moments, and because of that old inter-imperialist tension trope, but I like to think it's cheerful in its own fashion. It was inspired by stumbling and groping through darkened streets searching for a bar one hot Earth Hour in Sydney, an adventure that gave me bad Ayn Rand flashbacks and had me bending Carol's ear about how I hadn't seen the like since looking for a beer after 7 p.m. in Prague in 1977.In other news, I've got a commission to write a short story for a special SF issue of Technology Review, about which I am well chuffed.

Onward into the virch

After 'The Vorkuta Event', another dark tale: my short story 'Earth Hour' is (for US readers at least) now available as a Tor.com Original, and from Amazon Kindle with a notably snazzy cover and a bargain price of all of $0.99 for 5,477 words.

It's a dark tale because of its two or three gruesome moments, and because of that old inter-imperialist tension trope, but I like to think it's cheerful in its own fashion. It was inspired by stumbling and groping through darkened streets searching for a bar one hot Earth Hour in Sydney, an adventure that gave me bad Ayn Rand flashbacks and had me bending Carol's ear about how I hadn't seen the like since looking for a beer after 7 p.m. in Prague in 1977.

In other news, I've got a commission to write a short story for a special SF issue of Technology Review, about which I am well chuffed.

Curtain call

OK, I lied said 'probably' for a reason. One more poem, which I was still considering before the handover: Pseudoglyphs, by Francis Silva.

Curtain call

OK, I lied said 'probably' for a reason. One more poem, which I was still considering before the handover: Pseudoglyphs, by Francis Silva.

The Human Genre Project

Peter Arnott, the newly appointed Resident Playwright at the Genomics Forum, is now also the new editor of The Human Genre Project. This online, open-ended anthology of new poems and short prose pieces inspired by genes and genomics has drawn contributions and even some media attention from around the world since its launch two years ago. I'm proud to have initiated it and have enjoyed editing it, and I'd like to thank all those who've contributed material as well as all who've been involved in setting up, publicising and running the site: Damien Noonan (who designed it), Emma Capewell and Alison Caldecott, Claire Alexander and Clare de Mowbray. My fellow writer in residence, Pippa Goldschmidt, was more or less a co-editor in the time we worked together, as well as a fine contributor.It's always been our intention that editorial responsibility for the site should go to the current writer in residence, and I'm very happy to pass this on to Peter. He'll bring a fresh eye to evaluating contributions, and a new range of contacts and colleagues to solicit contributions from. He already has schemes up his sleeve, so watch this space. Which is not to say I'll stop twisting arms myself.Meanwhile, here's probably the last of my choices for the site, Premature Beauty by Stephanie Lynn Keil.

The Human Genre Project

Peter Arnott, the newly appointed Resident Playwright at the Genomics Forum, is now also the new editor of The Human Genre Project. This online, open-ended anthology of new poems and short prose pieces inspired by genes and genomics has drawn contributions and even some media attention from around the world since its launch two years ago. I'm proud to have initiated it and have enjoyed editing it, and I'd like to thank all those who've contributed material as well as all who've been involved in setting up, publicising and running the site: Damien Noonan (who designed it), Emma Capewell and Alison Caldecott, Claire Alexander and Clare de Mowbray. My fellow writer in residence, Pippa Goldschmidt, was more or less a co-editor in the time we worked together, as well as a fine contributor.

It's always been our intention that editorial responsibility for the site should go to the current writer in residence, and I'm very happy to pass this on to Peter. He'll bring a fresh eye to evaluating contributions, and a new range of contacts and colleagues to solicit contributions from. He already has schemes up his sleeve, so watch this space.

Which is not to say I'll stop twisting arms myself.

Meanwhile, here's probably the last of my choices for the site, Premature Beauty by Stephanie Lynn Keil.

The New and Perfect Man

This week I received from PS Publishing my contributor copy of Postscripts #24/25 - The New and Perfect Man edited by Peter Crowther & Nick Gevers, in the sumptuous signed and tray-cased limited edition, an object of extraordinary beauty; a jacketed hardcover is also available.Truth in advertising compels me to admit that the names of a few of the authors, mine included, are missing from the signature sheets. Suffice it to say that a batch of signature sheets were irretrievably and inexplicably lost in the post between me and the next name on the list. This is all of a piece with the quite remarkable ill-luck that has dogged my own story, originally commissioned many years ago for an anthology of Lovecraftian hard SF called The Cthulhuian Singularity, whose publication encountered eventually terminal delays and ... difficulties, the tale of which is not for mortal tongue to utter. I'm inordinately proud of 'The Vorkuta Event', but the vicissitudes of its publication have often made me mutter darkly about the possibility that the story is actually cursed.However - all's well that ends well! It's published at last, in stellar company and in a very fine edition, delightfully illustrated. If any brave soul approaches me with a copy, I'll be very happy to sign it.With my left hand, just in case.Details:The latest bumper edition of the POSTSCRIPTS ANTHOLOGY - almost 150,000 words in all!•THE NEW AND PERFECT MAN -- Carol Emshwiller (cover story, Ed Emsh illustration)•FRIGHTENED ANGELS -- Jeremy Adam Smith•TO SEE INFINITY BARE -- Rudy Rucker & Paul Di Filippo•ELECTRIC BREAKFAST -- Paul Meloy•A CRACK IN THE CEILING OF THE WORLD -- Michael Kelly•THE DOG PARADE -- Lawrence Person•THE LAST HERETIC -- Darrell Schweitzer•THE STORY OF PRINCESS ROSEBUD -- Alan Peter Ryan•THE INN OF DISTANT SORROWS -- Thomas Tessier•A MOMENT AT THE HOUSE -- T.M. Wright•WHISPER -- Richard Calder•THE PRIMATE SANCTUARY -- Quentin S. Crisp•CALL ME -- Bob Strother•SO LOVED -- Matthew Hughes•CONFESSIONS OF A TYRANT'S DOUBLE -- Gregory Norminton•EUPHORIA -- Robert Reed•TRUE BLUE -- Darrell Schweitzer•CHRIST THE PAINTER -- Allen Ashley•YOUR GOLDEN HANDS -- Andrew Hook•THE GHOST OF LILLIAN BLISS -- Rio Youers•ASHES IN THE WATER -- Joel Lane and Mat Joiner•CHILD OF EVIL STARS -- Anne-Sylvie Homassel•HER FINGERS LIKE WHIPS, HER EYES LIKE RAZORS -- Jay Lake•DR. BLACK, THOUGHTS & PATENTS -- Brendan Connell•THE ROOM BEYOND -- Ramsey Campbell•THROWNNESS -- Adam Roberts•IMAGO -- Keith Brooke•THE VORKUTA EVENT -- Ken MacLeod

The New and Perfect Man

This week I received from PS Publishing my contributor copy of Postscripts #24/25 - The New and Perfect Man edited by Peter Crowther & Nick Gevers, in the sumptuous signed and tray-cased limited edition, an object of extraordinary beauty; a jacketed hardcover is also available.

Truth in advertising compels me to admit that the names of a few of the authors, mine included, are missing from the signature sheets. Suffice it to say that a batch of signature sheets were irretrievably and inexplicably lost in the post between me and the next name on the list. This is all of a piece with the quite remarkable ill-luck that has dogged my own story, originally commissioned many years ago for an anthology of Lovecraftian hard SF called The Cthulhuian Singularity, whose publication encountered eventually terminal delays and ... difficulties, the tale of which is not for mortal tongue to utter. I'm inordinately proud of 'The Vorkuta Event', but the vicissitudes of its publication have often made me mutter darkly about the possibility that the story is actually cursed.

However - all's well that ends well! It's published at last, in stellar company and in a very fine edition, delightfully illustrated. If any brave soul approaches me with a copy, I'll be very happy to sign it.

With my left hand, just in case.

Details:

The latest bumper edition of the POSTSCRIPTS ANTHOLOGY - almost 150,000 words in all!

•THE NEW AND PERFECT MAN -- Carol Emshwiller (cover story, Ed Emsh illustration)
•FRIGHTENED ANGELS -- Jeremy Adam Smith
•TO SEE INFINITY BARE -- Rudy Rucker & Paul Di Filippo
•ELECTRIC BREAKFAST -- Paul Meloy
•A CRACK IN THE CEILING OF THE WORLD -- Michael Kelly
•THE DOG PARADE -- Lawrence Person
•THE LAST HERETIC -- Darrell Schweitzer
•THE STORY OF PRINCESS ROSEBUD -- Alan Peter Ryan
•THE INN OF DISTANT SORROWS -- Thomas Tessier
•A MOMENT AT THE HOUSE -- T.M. Wright
•WHISPER -- Richard Calder
•THE PRIMATE SANCTUARY -- Quentin S. Crisp
•CALL ME -- Bob Strother
•SO LOVED -- Matthew Hughes
•CONFESSIONS OF A TYRANT'S DOUBLE -- Gregory Norminton
•EUPHORIA -- Robert Reed
•TRUE BLUE -- Darrell Schweitzer
•CHRIST THE PAINTER -- Allen Ashley
•YOUR GOLDEN HANDS -- Andrew Hook
•THE GHOST OF LILLIAN BLISS -- Rio Youers
•ASHES IN THE WATER -- Joel Lane and Mat Joiner
•CHILD OF EVIL STARS -- Anne-Sylvie Homassel
•HER FINGERS LIKE WHIPS, HER EYES LIKE RAZORS -- Jay Lake
•DR. BLACK, THOUGHTS & PATENTS -- Brendan Connell
•THE ROOM BEYOND -- Ramsey Campbell
•THROWNNESS -- Adam Roberts
•IMAGO -- Keith Brooke
•THE VORKUTA EVENT -- Ken MacLeod

'I, Robot.' You what?

So I'm doing an after-dinner talk about robots and AI in SF for SICSA's PhD student conference and by way of introduction I say something that I only thought of that afternoon. Which is that as an SF writer I sometimes get asked to speak at events like this, relating SF to the actual practice of a discipline, and that it's just occurred to me that in every case SF owes that field an apology for getting it wrong. Take surveillance studies, for instance: we gave them Nineteen Eighty-Four, which is all about real-time surveillance rather than the accumulation and storage of records. This has people worked up about surveillance cameras and quite blasé about Google (etc) tracking their every move.Or take genomics, an area in which I've been quite involved, and the technologies associated with it: genetic engineering and genetic medicine. The SF template for these has been provided by Brave New World and Frankenstein. What these works have spawned, regardless of the intent of their creators, is a great lumbering monster of reactionary anxieties.And robotics, computer science, and AI? Yup, we did it again, from Čapek onwards (not to mention Mary Shelley's creature). And even when Eano Binder and Isaac Asimov had taken a hammer to the Revolt of the Robots cliché, almost all SF about robots and AI has dealt not with likely consequences but about, well, us: distinctively human-centred themes of labour, slavery, consciousness, identity; and the anxieties provoked when we see, or imagine, these replicated in a machine.And then I went on to give my talk about how SF has dealt with these. What I wonder, though, thinking about this, is whether there's any area of human endeavour or inquiry which has featured largely in SF, and that SF has handled in a way that hasn't been an utterly cringe-making travesty of what it's actually about.Suggestions welcome.