Ian Martyn's Blog, page 18
April 2, 2014
Do you want to live in the high rise cities of the future?
Following on from my last blog ‘Where is society going? What will the future look like?’ I’ve done some thinking and a little digging. Apparantly, by the middle of this century it is estimated that 75% of the world’s population could be living in cities. To me throws up a whole bag load of issues, … Continue Reading →
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March 26, 2014
Where is society going? What will the future look like?
In previous blogs I’ve looked a number of times at our possible future relationships, with robots, androids and other intelligent machines, which brings into question, for me, what it means to be human. Another area that as a science fiction writer I of course speculate on, is how our world and then other worlds might … Continue Reading →
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March 19, 2014
My top 5 science fiction inventions
When considering my top five science fiction inventions I have tried to leave out the obvious that form the backbone of science fiction. Those are of course space travel and in particular faster than light space travel, strange worlds and the alien species that inhabit them. So apart from those here are my top 5: … Continue Reading →
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March 12, 2014
5 more reasons writers should blog
Some months ago I wrote a blog, ‘5 reasons why writers should blog’. Well many more weeks of blogging have strengthened my belief of how important it is, to me at least as a writer. So here are 5 more: 1) Connecting with people. For me that means connecting particularly with other writers, other fans … Continue Reading →
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March 5, 2014
Robots, androids and intelligent machines – what next?
I wrote a blog with this same title back in September 2012, with the added caveat, ‘do we want them to look human’ rather than, ‘what next?’. It seems that this is a subject that doesn’t just fascinates me. It is certainly the most visited blog I’ve written, so I thought it was worth revisiting, … Continue Reading →
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February 26, 2014
What happens when robots and machines are smarter than us?
I’ve written a number of blogs that look at the issues around our (that is human) relationship with ever smarter machine intelligences and it continues to be a subject that fascinates me. I think it an area in science fiction that is perhaps under explored. Just blogging about it has given me several ideas for … Continue Reading →
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February 19, 2014
Is e-publishing changing the length of a book?
Looking on my book shelves at some of the science fiction that first inspired me I see books that at most are 250 pages. My copy of Asimov’s Foundation and Empire is less than 200 pages (172 to be precise). Alright, it’s small type and there are more words per page than later books (was … Continue Reading →
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February 12, 2014
‘If it doesn’t move the story along, take it out,’ – good advice or not?
OK, hands up, who’s been given, or read the advice that: ‘if it doesn’t move the story along, take it out’? Or at least words to that effect. My guess is just about every writer has at some time or other. I have, both. That is, I’ve been given it (in an edit) and read … Continue Reading →
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February 4, 2014
Space exploration and Scifi – why we need them both.
In the Saturday Times magazine of the 18th January I read the column by Caitlin Moran, as I usually do. I like her irreverent somewhat sideways take on life. It makes you smile, but also it makes you think. In this particular column she starts with the Chinese Jade Rabbit mission and moves on to … Continue Reading →
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January 29, 2014
What makes a good Fantasy read (or not) – 3)
In the first two blogs of this series I looked at what can stop me reading some sci-fi books. So now as, I guess with most sci-fi fans, I also read Fantasy its only fair to turn my attention to some of the specific issues that genre raises. I must say I have read some great Fantasy books and … Continue Reading →
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