Tag Archives: science fiction

William Gibson does not think our present was anyone’s future

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Garry Peterson

David Wallace-Wells has a long interview with William Gibson on the Art of Fiction in the Paris Review.  The interview concludes Do you think of your last three books as being science fiction? GIBSON No, I think of them as attempts … Continue reading →

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Murakami on fiction for an unreal world

Posted on December 9, 2010 by Garry Peterson

One of the problems with scenario planning is that it requires plausible scenarios, but that reality is behaves in ways that are implausible.  This is another way of describing what Nassim Taleb named Black Swans, significant unexpected events, that change … Continue reading →

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Need for new utopian stories

Posted on December 6, 2010 by Garry Peterson

Following up on the previous post’s William Gibson quote, another science fiction writer with interesting ideas about the future is Scottish writer Charlie Stross.  On his weblog Charlie’s Diary, he writes about something I think is important, the need for … Continue reading →

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Why are there so few positive stories about the future?

Posted on February 23, 2010 by Garry Peterson

Today’s stories about the future seem to be pretty bleak. Recent big apocalyptic novels have been McCarthy’s The Road, Atwood’s Year of the Flood, but I can’t think of many influential positive environmental futures after Ecotopia in the early 1970s. … Continue reading →

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Kim Stanley Robinson on writing about Utopias

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Garry Peterson

In an interview with Terry Bisson, science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson talks about the importance of writing about utopias: Terry Bisson: My favorite of that series is Pacific Edge, the utopia of the series. What’s yours? Are there any … Continue reading →

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The 21st century a FAQ

Posted on March 18, 2009 by Garry Peterson

From Scottish Science Fiction writer Charlie Stross, Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about the 21st century: Q: What can we expect? A: Pretty much what you read about in New Scientist every week. Climate change, dust bowls caused by over-cultivation … Continue reading →

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Pickering on science fiction and cybernetics

Posted on November 28, 2008 by Garry Peterson

Historian of science, Andrew Pickering (who wrote Mangle of Practice) while reviewing How We Became Posthuman by Katherine Hayles (in Technology and Culture 41.2 (2000) 392-395) writes about science fiction and cybernetics: “Posthumanity” is not necessarily a bad thing. Following … Continue reading →

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Kim Stanley Robinson on nature, architecture, and society

Posted on January 4, 2008 by Garry Peterson

Geoff Manaugh recently interviewed ecological science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson about ecology, architecture and socieities on BLDGBLOG.  Manaugh writes: Robinson’s books are not only filled with descriptions of landscapes – whole planets, in fact, noted, sensed, and textured down … Continue reading →

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