Ken MacLeod's comments.
The title comes from two quotes:
“If these are the early days of a better nation, there must be hope, and a hope of peace is as good as any, and far better than a hollow hoarding greed or the dry lies of an aweless god.”—Graydon Saunders
Contact: kenneth dot m dot macleod at gmail dot com Blog-related emails may be quoted unless you ask otherwise.
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The musical baton
1. The person who passed the baton to you.
Ellis Sharp.
2. Total volume of music files on your computer.
None, except for a fake folk-song I wrote for Dark Light, which was arranged and performed by a couple who liked it and are real folk singers. It sounds just like I imagined it. Eerie.
3. The title and artist of the last CD you bought.
'Funeral' by Arcade Fire. We heard them on Jools and bought the album the next day.
4. Song playing at the moment of writing
None. I've occasionally blogged while listening to Warren Zevon, with sometimes regretable results. I've done better with music while writing fiction. The soundtrack for Newton's Wake was The Eagles''Desperado'. Other novels have been soundtracked by Karen Matheson's 'The Dreaming Sea' and The Chieftains' 'The Long Black Veil'; space battles scored by Warren Zevon ...
5. Five songs you have been listening to of late (or all-time favourites, or particularly personally meaningful songs)
'Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner' Warren Zevon
'Mo Ghile Mear' (trad) The Chieftains (with Sting)
'Why Walk when You can Fly' Mary Chapin Carpenter
'There's Always Sunday' Karen Matheson
'Be Good to Yourself' Frankie Miller
6. The five people to whom you will 'pass the musical baton.'
I've decided to stop being a meme vector. If anyone wants to pick up the baton, however, let me know and I'll link to your post.
Play Up, Play Up, and Play the Game!
Ellis Sharp has responded to my book-tagging. His response is well worth a visit, and reminds me by example that part of the game of book tag is telling why certain books mean a lot to you. I skipped that part, and make amends now. The books were:
On the Nature of Things by Titus Lucretius Carus, translated and introduced by Martin Ferguson Smith, Sphere Books, London, 1969 (Rome, circa 59 B.C.)
This is a long poem giving an impassioned defence and exposition of the ancient doctrine of materialism and of the ethical teachings derived from it by Epicurus. Much of the science in it is speculative, but it's speculation grounded in the appearances of things. These appearances are vividly described. Not all of the ethical doctrines have endured, but enough have to make it an inspiring as well as interesting book. As a young materialist it mattered to me that we too have our ancient texts, our saints and sages, wise men and good news. After reading it I conceived the mad project of writing a modern version. The few lines I wrote of that (and other scraps of Epicurean paraphrase) ended up in my novels Cosmonaut Keep and Dark Light.
Don't fear that philosophy's an impious way
- superstition's more likely to lead folk astray.
The Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin, sixth edition (1872), with a foreword by George Gaylord Simpson, Collier Books, NY, 1962, 1967.
With this book materialism moved from a speculation to an explanation. As Richard Dawkins puts it, for billions of years organisms lived and died without ever knowing why, until, in 1843, one of them figured it out. His name was Charles Darwin. I already understood the explanation. What I learned from the book was how much I had been lied to about it.
History of England by Lord Macaulay.
When my folks talked about the Revolution, they meant 1688. When I read this book a couple of years ago I at last understood what they meant. It's a terrific read. It has a villain, James the Second of England, and a hero, William of Orange. It was perhaps the first respectable work in centuries to put in a good word for Cromwell. It's bourgeois, patrician, and complacent; conservative and liberal; the Whig interpretation of history, saturated with what E. P. Thompson called 'the immense condescension of posterity' towards the radicals and sectaries and lower orders who fought the Revolution's battles. Its faults are easy to list; its strengths are best discovered by reading it, which is itself a joy from beginning to end. It has the best last line of any work of history.
Discovering the Scottish Revolution by Neil Davidson.
This is the most recent book on my list. It explains how Scotland became capitalist. It was written by a Marxist civil servant in his spare time. The equivalent work for Ireland was written by a bolshevik bus-conductor in Belfast. (Brendan Clifford. Neil, I'm sure, would disagree with the parallel, but that's life.) Why these things happen is explained by the next book on the list.
The Poverty of Theory and other Essays by E. P. Thompson.
The two essays that matter here are 'The Peculiarities of the English' and 'The Poverty of Theory'. They explain and exemplify why radical thought in Britain has developed without the benefit of a radical intelligentsia. England is not best understood by invidious comparison with France. The British bourgeoisie is not subaltern to an effete but tenacious aristocracy. The British working class is not a 'placid urban peasantry'. In the history of materialism, Darwin matters more than Diderot. Thompson makes these points seem obvious, in the course of polemics with theoreticians who thought them outrageous.
But this isn't why the book means a lot to me. In fact, I don't know why I pick it up and get lost in it (as I just have) for hours. Maybe it's just that old Revolution thing, the pleasure of polemic; the ready ear for the long sermon, the pamphlet, the rant.
To Boldly Stay
Like a flu pandemic, a new movement in SF has been overdue and anxiously awaited for some time. It's not yet clear whether Mundane SF is the Big One that's destined to devastate the globe, but already the scientifictional experts are on the case, shaking their heads over the chicken-coops where the virus spreads.
What Mundane SF has in common with two notable previous outbreaks - New Wave in the 60s, cyberpunk in the 80s - is a vehement turning away from what most people outside of SF identify as SF (rockets and rayguns and talking squids in outer space and all that) and towards the scientifictionality of the real world. Forget about shiny starships and galactic empires! Look at the present! Vietnam! Sex! Drugs! (New Wave.) Japan!! Sex!! Drugs!! (Cyberpunk.) America. Sex. Drugs. (Mundane.)
Through both of its previous returns to Earth, SF renewed itself, and turned again to the stars. New Wave was followed by a new Hard SF; cyberpunk, by New Space Opera. Each of these reactions took with them the lasting gains of the preceding revolutions. Mundane SF, if it takes off, can likewise expect to end up as a wisp in the wake of a better warp-drive.