Warren Ellis's Blog, page 44
October 3, 2012
There Will Be Some Who Will Not Fear Even That Void
…is basically the best title ever.
It is taken from a letter Johannes Kepler wrote to Galileo Galilei in 1610, musing on the future of space travel. "Provide ship or sails adapted to the heavenly breezes," Kepler hypothesised, "and there will be some who will not fear even that void."
I love that so much.
This is a Kickstarter project, to complete the editing and sound design of a film:
…a surreal, semi-fictional, sci-fi ecological documentary.
I imagine the artists as a team of specialists sent on a mission in the future to rebuild the Arctic environment after it has been almost completely destroyed by global warming. With no master plan, maps or blueprints, each artist recreates the Arctic of his or her own (flawed) memories, fears and desires. Through the film’s narration I will also address darker contemporary concerns: global warming, the Arctic resource race, the political tension of a militarised Arctic and the disappearance of the last great wilderness.
Joe Hill Is A Very Nice Man
A clip from the mechanical of the GUN MACHINE cover. Which I’m probably not supposed to show you, but still.
Joe Hill is a very nice man. (I would point you at his website, but it’s down as I write this.) You can find him on Twitter as @joe_hill.
October 2, 2012
Bookmarks for 2012-10-02
"The idea of a magic paper writing book, wherein you write your first draft using a pen and paper, and it magically appears in a word processor afterwards, is a marvel to behold. Almost as much of a marvel as the speech recognition software I am using to draft this blog entry."
(tags:writers writing spimeworld comp )
BBC News – Space ‘harpoon’ tested in search for answer to junk in orbit
(tags:space )
BBC News – Liquid air ‘offers energy storage hope’
(tags:eco energy )
BBC News – ‘Cling film’ space telescope to image Sun
PHOTON SIEVE
(tags:space sci tech )
booklist 3oct12
This is getting desperate.
* ALPHA, Greg Rucka
* LONDON’S OVERTHROW, China Mieville
* THE ISLANDERS, Christopher Priest
* POST-CINEMATIC AFFECT, Steven Shaviro
* Jeff Noon’s CHANNEL SK1N
* TRIBAL PEOPLES FOR TOMORROW’S WORLD by Stephen Corry.
* ANGELMAKER, Nick Harkaway.
* HOW TO TEACH QUANTUM PHYSICS TO YOUR DOG, Chad Orzel
* BACKROOM BOYS, Francis Spufford
* DEAD WATER, Simon Ings
* HIGH LIFE, Matthew Stokoe (I think Frankie Boyle recommended me this)
* RATNER’S STAR, Don Delillo
* MURDER AS A FINE ART, David Morrell
* THE FORBIDDEN BOOK, Guido Mina di Sospiro & Joscelyn Godwin
* THE RELIGION OF THE SAMURAI, Kaiten Nukariya
* TOPLOADER, Ed O’Loughlin
* THE GIFT OF STONES, Jim Crace
* EMBASSYTOWN, China Mieville
DISCORDIA
DISCORDIA is an ebook about the state of Greece this past summer, written by Laurie Penny and illustrated by Molly Crabapple. They went to Greece together to get boots on the ground, Molly sketching and Laurie making notes right there. It’s published by Random House. It is really, really good.
If you click through here, the Look Inside should show you Paul Mason’s excellent foreword.
The editor, Dan Franklin, wrote an interesting bit on its genesis and production here:
Molly actually created most of the art first and Laurie wrote after it. I explained to Molly that the majority of readers would be using black and white e-ink devices, so she focused on black line-drawings with the only colour really being the red bloodstains of the violent anti-Golden Dawn protests.
She created a mix of predominantly finished pieces and sketches to communicate the in-the-moment nature of the reportage, sketching as Laurie did notes. We’ve ended up with 36 pieces in the finished ebook, which weighs in at 24,000 words – and if anyone complains about that being priced (under) £2 ($3), they don’t deserve it.
Obviously, I’m biased, as I adore both the little monsters. But I think it’s turned out to be one of Laurie’s very best pieces, and Molly, who’s been levelling up all year, hit a new high mark in the illustration herein.
And, right now, it is literally $3.10 in the US and under £2 in the UK.
(amazon.co.uk) (amazon.com) (ebooks)
FALSE POSITIVE
The interface is a little shonky, but this guy knows what he’s doing. Mike Walton’s FALSE POSITIVE is an ongoing collection of short stories of the strange and macabre, beautifully paced and gorgeously illustrated.
October 1, 2012
Bookmarks for 2012-10-01
"A voice calls application called MindMeld to be available this month promises to know what iPad users want before they do. The application, named for the way the character Spock melded minds with other beings in hit classic science fiction television series "Star Trek," analyzes conversations in real-time to anticipate speakers' desires."
(tags:apps comp comms contextual voice )
A Sound Awareness: Kindred Of The Kibbo Kift
"The Kibbo Kift were an early 'open air' social movement founded by John Hargrave in 1920. Hargrave’s aim was to encourage “outdoor education, the learning of handicrafts, physical training, the reintroduction of ritual into modern life, the regeneration of urban man and the establishment of a new world civilisation.”"
(tags:history book music covers )
ELECTRIC RESENTER | mascara
"Steve Aylett is a satirical science fiction and slipstream author most recently adopted by the bizarro movement. He is the creator of the futuristic, dystopian world known as Beerlight, the producer of the no-wave film, Lint, has written issues for several comic book series, and was the winner of the Jack Trevor Story Award in 2006." In case you were unaware.
(tags:music writers )
Payload by @stuwillis | Short Film
Very nice science fiction short from an Australian director
(tags:video )
??Now
via @craigmod – live visualisation of every train running in Japan
(tags:dataviz )
A Real-Time Map of Global Cyberattacks – Global – The Atlantic Wire
"Cyberattacks are happening constantly across the globe, and now you can see what that looks in real-time with this map by the Honeynet Project that shows so many attacks, it looks and feels like it's straight out of an apocalyptic war movie."
(tags:dataviz comms war crime )
The Power Of Design
Yes, very good, Grant and Darick. Very good.
Warren Ellis's Blog
- Warren Ellis's profile
- 5767 followers
