Ken MacLeod's Blog, page 36

Decades

Some mercifully lost diary records my excitement at the first decade rollover I was old enough to be aware of, in 1969. I remember being excited about it, because I'd read enough science fiction set in or referring to the 1970s to think of the 1970s as the beginning of the scientifictional future. I wondered where I'd be in 1979: maybe fighting for king and country against China? (Why king? Possibly because some near-future political novel by Douglas Hurd and Andrew Osmond - The Smile on the ...

What I did in 2009

I've had a really good year as a Writer in Residence for the Genomics Forum: generous facilities, total creative freedom, friendly and helpful colleagues. Blog posts about my activities, and/or relevant (however tangentially) to the Forum's concerns, are grouped here. Although my half-time employment has come to an end, my residency (and Pippa's) hasn't, for which we're grateful. Until further notice we're free to use the office, and we'll continue to develop (and expand into other media- wat...

Season's Greetings

Happy Christmas, Hannukah, Yuletide, or other solstice festival of your choice to you all!

Working in the spaceship yards, for real

On Tuesday I gave a talk at Strathclyde University's Advanced Space Concepts Laboratory's seminar series. Professor Colin McInnes (who I'd met at Satellite 2, and whose talk there was recently summarised in an article in The Herald) and Dr Malcolm Macdonald had invited me, and they showed me around the labs and took me out for a few drinks, a meal and a very stimulating conversation afterwards - for all of which, much thanks.

You can see the seminar here - there's an opening sample on the page...

Canadian SF writer beaten, arrested, and charged with assault by US border police

Canadian SF writer Peter Watts is in serious legal trouble, after making the mistake, on his way back to the free world, of asking US border guards why they were searching his car. His friends and colleagues are rallying round, and so can you, via the PayPal button on this page and of course by spreading the word.

How knowing about our DNA changes our sense of who we are

Genomics Forum deputy director Steve Sturdy has an article on the new twists that genomics has given to ideas of biological, social, ethnic, family and personal identity - reinforcing some, undermining others, and leaving few untouched - in the current issue of The Philospher's Magazine.

New fiction on the Human Genre Project

First, on the Y chromosome, we have a Speciation: the Day REDE OS Forked by Tasmanian sculptor Meika Loofs Samorzewski. Second, on chromosome 4, we're proud to have a brief extract from The Embalmer's Book of Recipes, by well-known science-and-fiction writer-and-speaker Ann Lingard.

Why Kepler's Somnium is (or isn't) hard SF, and other more interesting questions

Last month BBC producer Louise Yeoman invited me to the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh to contribute to a 20-minute BBC radio programme about Kepler's Somnium, which also featured Andrew Brown, the observatory's Professor Avery Meiksin, and science historian James Connor.

You can now hear it on the BBC iPlayer, and it's worth a listen. Prof Meiksin is a joy to listen to. As for me, well ... I sound a lot more coherent and fluent than I sounded to myself at the time. (Good editing, probably.) Wha...

Human Genre Project updates

Three new poems at the Human Genre Project: Dave Lordan's Surviving the recession is a fine rant, but not at first glance obviously about genetics. Dave explains: 'It hasn't got to do with a specific gene, but with the overall idea of socio-environmental adaptation.' It scores. John Morris's Crazy Quilt makes a point about DNA, and Inchoate Origins by Karen Booth speculates on a possible ancestor of us all.

Guilt-tripping and hair shirts not way to go, hair-shirted Green guilt-tripper admits

Mark Lynas, who recently welcomed recession and rising oil prices, and compared flying to planting mass-casualty long-delayed time-bombs, has had something of a change of heart:

If the lesson for scientists is that the era when they can practice their trade entirely separately from the rest of society is well and truly over, the lesson for environmentalists is equally harsh. Having spent years (once again, myself included) reminding the public of the horrifying potential consequences of...