I would like to begin with a simple statement: science fiction is not about the future. It is about the present—but expressed in a language that the present can bear. Imagine a world in which the state monitors you constantly; algorithms anticipate your actions; machines make decisions in place of human beings; and war no… Continue reading Science Fiction and Geopolitics – Science Fiction as a User Manual
Category: Edge of Fiction
Essays & Notes
The Hemingway Challenge
A friend poked me to take the Hemingway challenge (it is said that Ernest won once $10 on a bet of writing a story in only six words: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”). Here’s my story, but in seven: Two plates on the table; one empty. I’m now passing on the challenge. I’m waiting… Continue reading The Hemingway Challenge
A definition of silence
I have some twenty old radios, some with vacuum tubes, some with transistors, bought at the flea market. One day, I imagine arranging them along the walls of a room, its windows flung wide open to let in the noise of the city. Then I would switch them on and tune each one to a… Continue reading A definition of silence
Baldanders
Borges said: he is Baldanders and thereupon takes the forms of a man, of an oak tree, of a sow, of a fat sausage, of a field of clover, of dung, of a flower, of a blossoming branch, of a mulberry bush, of a silk tapestry, of many other things and beings, and then, once… Continue reading Baldanders