Keith Stevenson's Blog, page 12

Review - The Peripheral - William Gibson

The Peripheral by William Gibson My rating: 3 of 5 stars My review of The Peripheral originally appeared on The Newtown Review of BooksWilliam Gibson is one of the most famous science fiction authors of the modern age. His now classic Sprawl Trilogy, Neuromancer, Burning Chrome and Mona Lisa Overdrive, heralded in the era of cyberpunk, concerned with that shadowy interface between humans and

Coal is (not) good for humanity

This article originally appeared in the 'Science vs Politics Fight Club' section of Beyond, my free newsletter for lovers of science and science fiction. Sign up here - http://eepurl.com/btvru1 ‘Coal is good for humanity, coal is good for prosperity.’ Prime Minister Tony Abbott at the opening of the BMA Caval Ridge coal mine in Queensland. October 2014. It’s probably one of the most

Beyond Newsletter / Science Speed Meet-Up

This Saturday I'll be launching my new regular newsletter, Beyond, with lots of articles and links about science, science fiction, books, films, television, the internet and anything else I think would be of interest to lovers of science and science fiction. Beyond will appear 8 times a year, monthly from August to November and February to May. You can sign up to receive it direct to your

Horizon price drop / NSWWC Speculative Fiction Festival

To celebrate the NSW Writers' Centre Speculative Fiction Festival, you can pick up my SF thriller Horizon throughout the month of July for only 99 cents! See the Horizon page for purchase links. I'll also be appearing at the NSWWC SF Festival on a couple of panels. The festival runs 10am to 6pm on Saturday 18th July at the centre in the the beautiful Callan Park Grounds just off Balmain Road

Kresz: the 'anti-Sense8'?

Reading J Michael Straczynski's interview on his new show Sense8, made with the Wachowskis, I realised they had turned my idea of Kresz development on its head. The Kresz used to be plagued with House Wars, each fighting the other for supremacy, and causing a lot of death and suffering as a result. But with the 'emergence' the Kresz developed their empathic sense, feeling the emotions and

The Lenticular Series - how long should each part be?

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How do Kresz talk? Creating language.

As part of Swancon, I appeared on the More Than Just Extra Umlauts panel about invented names and languages, because as part of the development of the Lenticular Series I'd realised that I needed to work out how my alien Kresz spoke and how their language was constructed in order to bring consistency to their names. I didn't have the language skills, time or need to invent a totally new language

Swancon - final panel list

Yes, Swancon 40 is almost here and after a little bit of rearrangement to avoid panel members cloning themselves or threatening causality, here's my final panel rundown. I'm very excited to be attending my very first Swancon and looking forward to talking about a whole range of topics that really interest me. Terrors of the Second Draft Friday 15:00 until Friday 16:00 Participants: Amanda

Swancon Panels - [draft subject to change!]

I'm really looking forward to my very first Swancon and the draft panel schedule is currently up on their site.

There is also one panel I'm very keen to be on which doesn't as yet appear on the schedule. If there are other SF folk out there who are going to Swancon and think they could contribute to this topic, please make your interest known to the Committee via the Swancon website.

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Horizon: the real life PALs

In Horizon, each of the stellarnauts have their own PAL, a ball-shaped personal assistant that hovers in the zero G environment using small fans and allows the stellarnauts to talk to each other via video and audio link as well as acting as a recorder.

It's a cool concept and, like pretty much everything in the novel, it's based on actual scientific development.

In 2006, DARPA and NASA began