A Japanese firm is offering geeky couples the opportunity to tie the knot in zero G. Only $2.3 million a time, which is a fraction of what the average Premiership footballer spends on nuptials, I believe. And the best bit of all, even if your relatives are brave enough to attend, there won’t be room for them in the ship.
Science Fiction
That’s the Way to Do It
Jeff VanderMeer does a fine job of promoting women writers.
Cultural Disconnect
Via the Guardian Book Blog I learn of a conference at the University of East Anglia that purported to unite creative writers and environmental scientists to see what fiction could do to help save the planet. And guess what? Yep, you got it, not a single science fiction writer involved. Because, you know, what would a bunch of pathetic geeks know about science, or saving the planet? They’d just want to blow it up with their ray guns, right?
They did discuss Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, though.
The Truth About Science Fiction
Via John Scalzi I discover that John C Wright has written a long treatise on the true nature of science fiction. It includes gems such as this:
What girls read is only tangentially related to science fiction, because it has mushy emotions and junk, like some sort of story about a spaceship-cyborg with a girl’s brain who falls in love with her pilot. Or horses telepathically linked to their Amazon riders. SF for girls has girly stuff in it, like feelings. Except for Goth girls, who write about vampires.
But before you get all uppity and outraged about this, I should warn you that I think the whole post is a fake. I have read it (well, skimmed it anyway), and I can’t find a single reference to spanking in the whole thing. Based on my previous experience with Mr. Wright’s writing (and I have read five of his books) I am forced to conclude that the post in question was authored by someone else.
March of the Robots
Today’s Economist has a long article on the rise and rise of the robotics industry. Along the way it correctly credits Karel Capek with inventing the word “robot” and discusses how close we are getting to implementing Asimov’s Laws of Robotics. Who says we don’t live in a science-fictional world?
Finnish Fund-Raisers Strike Again
How the Finns do it, I do not know, but Tero has some excellent news about cultural grants received by four of Finland’s science fiction magazines. I’m not even going to think about what Emerald City could have done with €16,000, or even €500. Yes, it won a Hugo, but if I had applied for a grant like that in the UK I would have been lucky to get away with being laughed at.
GATTACA?
One rather less encouraging piece of news from California is that the state’s health regulators have sent notices to 13 genetic testing services asking them to halt sales until they have proved that they comply with the necessary requirements. In particular California state law requires that genetic screening can only be done at the request of a doctor, yet these companies appear to advertise on the Internet to ordinary people, offering screening services (see here, for example). Goodness only knows what people buying these services will make of the results.
The one company I checked out appears to be concentrating on telling the individual what health risks he or she might face because of their genetic make-up. But presumably genetic screening of potential mates, and of actual embryos, won’t be far behind. It is an interesting world we are moving into.
The Cory Column
Cory Doctorow is back in The Guardian today. This column is about the sheet quantity of data collected by modern day security services. Cory’s quite right that it does them little good, though I’m not sure that his SF-based explanation as to why this is so will work for non-SF readers. Still, he does manage to plug Charlie Stross and Rudy Rucker along the way, which is a very good thing.
But tell me, what about this? The column begins:
The Singularity is a conceit of modern science fiction: a place inside vast computers where whole universes are simulated whose reality is every bit as sharp and instantaneous as the physical world we inhabit.
Um??? I guess he must have been edited.
You Rock!
The Borderlands petition is now closing in on 150 signatures. Huge thanks to John Picacio, Ellen Datlow, Jeff Ford and John Scalzi (and anyone else who has been sending people here that I have missed). Thanks also to everyone who has signed it. I suspect that the planning people in San Francisco will be gobsmacked.
Hey, and isn’t it nice to see the Internet communication system being used for something positive rather than for whipping up a witch hunt against someone?
Coming Up at SF in SF
This weekend sees another reading in the SF in SF series. The guests for Saturday will be Carol Emshwiller and Pat Murphy. Location and timing details are available at the web site.
On Space Suit Design
Space suits, as every geek knows, should not be the horrible, bulky things that actual astronauts wear. They should be sleek, sexy designs as they might have been imagined by someone like Jim Burns. And, as Jennifer Ouellette reports, someone is working on it. Hopefully many people, in fact, though from an aesthetic point of view I think that Dava Newman’s design will be hard to beat.
As for the comments in that article about NASA, the less said the better: “inability to recreate heritage technology” indeed!
Fairies to Invade London
Doing a quick check of things happening in the coming month, I discover that the theme of this year’s Pride London is “Fairytales, Myths and Legends”. Goodness, they are playing our tune. It seems to be that we ought to be able to help out with this, though ideas as to precise mechanisms are currently eluding me. Anyway, if I can sort of somewhere to stay, I’m hoping to at least be there for the parade.
Charlie at the Grauniad
Today’s Guardian includes an interview with Charlie Stross (conducted by Damien G Walter). It covers a variety of subjects including the Singularity and the nature of fiction:
“I think that if there’s one key insight science can bring to fiction,” he says, “it’s that fiction – the study of the human condition – needs to broaden its definition of the human condition. Because the human condition isn’t immutable and doomed to remain uniform forever. If it was, we’d still be living in caves rather than worrying about global climate change. To the extent that writers of mainstream literary fiction focus on the interior landscape exclusively, they’re wilfully ignoring processes and events that have a major impact on our lives. And I think that’s an unforgivably short-sighted position to take.”
That will put a few establishment noses out of joint, I suspect.
Update: link corrected – thanks to Juha Autero whose comment ought to be below but it got eaten by the spam trap.
Seeing Across the Pond
Jennifer Ouellette has a new blog on the Discovery Channel web site. Today she looks at a wonderful piece of steampunk theater: a telescope that allows you to look through the Transatlantic Tunnel. Of course the whole think is faked with webcams, but it is a lovely idea. Hopefully someone will invite Harry Harrison along to look through it. It is abut time he got credit for writing steampunk back in 1972.
More Miracles of Science
Peggy at Biology in Science Fiction has found another wonderful web site. Genochoice.com claims to be able to scan your DNA over the Internet (you put your thumb on the screen to perform the analysis) and tell you what genetic deformities you have. “Novelty-seeking behavior” seems to crop up a lot. I wonder how many people think this is real?
SF Documentaries on YouTube
Interesting post on Crooked Timber pointing at BBC4 science fiction documentaries available on YouTube. Goodness only knows if this is legal, but they sound very interesting. One on John Wyndham, one on Nigel Kneale.
Preserving Our Heritage
I meant to post about this yesterday but forgot, and as a consequence Mike Glyer has beaten me to it. The short version is that a group of Aussies have started a very interesting project about preserving genre publications and memorabilia. Mike has the long version.
Looking Over the Edge
Via the excellent Peggy I discover that the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’s journal, IEEE Spectrum, has a special issue on the Singularity, including a contribution from Vernor Vinge. I haven’t had a chance to read much of it yet, but there does seem to be a fair amount of debunking going on in addition to the wild-eyed fantasizing. I also note in passing that the word “singularity” is becoming seriously devalued.
Steampunk Rising
Via Jeff VanderMeer I find this photo-story on steampunk from ChannelWeb magazine. Being a photo-story, it concentrates heavily on craftsmen such as Richard Nagy and costumers, but it does include brief quotes from Ann VanderMeer and Jess Nevins. I note also that I’ve been hearing rumors of plans for steampunk conventions. I suspect they’d do well. Hopefully someone will run a gaming track and dig out a copy of Space 1899 which had one of the best RPG backstories ever, and was sadly let down by dreadful rules.
Fantastic Vacations
It seems I am not the only one who is getting depressed by yet another awful British summer. Damien G Walter is asking Guardian readers which fantasy world they would like to go on vacation to. Given the weather, I suspect that somewhere like Arrakis or Tatooine might be appropriate.