mmcirvin: (Default)
[personal profile] mmcirvin
James Nicoll points out the questionable history of the Moller Skycar.

Mind you, he spends a lot of his time arguing that it's not a good idea for science-fiction writers to concentrate exclusively on depressing polemical futurism about tyranny and doom, so he's not the biggest Mr. Buzzkill by a considerable margin.

unpolemical futurism

Date: 2007-08-31 06:06 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] notr.livejournal.com
I just finished the very fun short story collection [livejournal.com profile] jwgh sent me a while ago, Paul Di Filippo's Ribofunk. It ends with a pleasantly upbeat little tale of future tyranny and doom in what I've dubbed The Enormous Chinese Room (thanks to E.E. Cummings and John Searle), where a colony creature of tiny molecular replicators has taken over the planet by replacing everyone and everything with exact copies of themselves. There are so many different levels of understanding that this story approaches in such a simple way, it reminded me a lot of Brian W. Aldiss (and reminded me that I need to remember to read a lot more of him).

Re: unpolemical futurism

Date: 2007-08-31 08:07 pm (UTC)
jwgh: (Default)
From: [personal profile] jwgh
That book gave me very strange dreams.

June 2025

S M T W T F S
1234567
89101112 1314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930     

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jun. 14th, 2025 06:01 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios