Are We Living in a Simulation?
Elon Musk thinks we definitely could be, and it seems he is not alone. The idea that we might simply be products of an advanced post-human civilisation, that are simply…
Why Science-Fiction Writers Couldn’t Imagine the Internet
On Star Trek, humans talked to computers—they even used something like floppy disks and memory sticks—but nowhere did crew members get information from ethereal machines whose locations and identities were…
Technobabble
UK podcast star Helen Zaltzman of The Allusionist helps me figure out why one set of poorly understood pseudo-scientific terms can sink a scene, while another set can make a…
Ray Bradbury’s Practical and Inspiring Writing Advice
Bradbury was full of wit and wisdom when it came to dishing out practical writing advice. His 1990 book Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity is a…
100 Great Works of Dystopian Fiction
Tales about a world gone wrong.
How to Recognize a Dystopia: Watch an Animated Introduction to Dystopian Fiction
Literature and film can open up to the depth and immensity of social truths we find profoundly difficult, if not impossible, to articulate. If our political vocabulary (as Oxford Dictionaries…
Kurt Vonnegut and the Rainmakers
In the mid 1940s, no one would publish Kurt Vonnegut’s stories. But when he gets hired as a press writer at General Electric, the company’s fantastical science inspires some of…
From beyond the grave
trying to hold onto someone after they are dead
What Really Happens After Societal Collapse
This idea of what actually happens when things collapse is why studying the plague, the bronze age collapse, and the reformation have been giving me surprising solace. {read}
What Happens to Fiction When Our Worst Climate Nightmares Start Coming True?
Movies, books and poetry have made predictions about a future that could be rapidly approaching {read}