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 Laboratory of Dr Latour, and Other Stories
The Social Sessions 01: The Laboratory of Doctor Latour, and Other Stories
Date: Wednesday 14 Oct 2009 17:30 - 19:30
Guests: Andrew J. Wilson (Writers' Bloc), Professor Steve Yearley (ESRC Genomics Forum), Dr Emma Frow (ESRC Genomics Forum), Dr Chris French (Lecturer in Microbial Biotechnology, University of Edinburgh)
Host: Ken Macleod, Writer in Residence, Genomics Forum
Organised by: Genomics Forum in partnership with Writers' Bloc and Transreal Fiction
Venue: Boardroom, ESRC Genomics Forum, 3rd Floor, St John's Land, Holyrood Road, University of Edinburgh
The Event: Drinks from 5.30pm in the ESRC Genomics Forum will be followed by a discussion, led by host Ken MacLeod and his guests, exploring how science fiction has portrayed scientific work.
The reckless 'mad scientist' like Frankenstein or Dr Moreau seldom appears in modern science fiction - some of whose writers are scientists themselves.
But do any of these fictional portrayals match what social scientists have found when observing scientists in their natural habitat? And how do scientists feel about sociologists watching them, and about SF writers imagining them?
The Social Sessions are a carnival of discussions about science and literature taking place October 2009 - January 2010.
This event is FREE, but due to venue capacity please RSVP to reserve a place. Email: genomics.forum@ed.ac.uk Tel: 0131 651 4747
Further details here.
Labels: coming attractions, genomics, local, skiffy, writing
' ... to re-forge the alloy that once made SF great.'
Late last year Geoff Ryman invited me to take part in an intriguing experiment: an anthology of science fiction short stories, each story written in consultation with an actual scientist and based on that scientist's current research. My own contribution was inspired Dr Richard Blake's work on the project known as the Virtual Physiological Human. My immediate vague notion of taking the usual SF approach to such humane, beneficial developments (how could this advance be grossly misused, and what are the military applications?) suddenly came into focus and got an opening line and a title when I heard my son (a journalist) say: 'I hate death knocks.'
Looking down the list of other contributors, and recalling the research areas I was too slow to grab (the Large Hadron Collider! Antarctica! the Moon! Nanotech armour!), I'm really looking forward to seeing the anthology, and I don't have long to wait: When It Changed: Science into Fiction is to be published and launched next month.
Labels: coming attractions, genomics, skiffy, writing
The Trease Project
Geoffrey Trease published his first historical novel for children, Bows Against the Barons in 1934. His last novel was published in 1997, in the year he died. I think it can be plausibly argued that he created the modern version of the historical novel for children, that lasted for most of the twentieth century, and he certainly helped to create a market for the likes of Rosemary Sutcliffe, Hester Burton, Ronald Welch and Henry Treece and many others. But he didn't just do that. Trease was quite left wing. He never joined a party as far as I know, but he set out to write a new form of history for children, which didn't focus on great men and women, but on the you and me of history. His works are full of sly little digs at the traditions of Empire, the assumptions of Progress, and the questions people should ask when they read history.
Let's talk about genes ...
Labels: genomics
Skiffy skeptics
I suppose every job has its taxi driver question, and for SF writers it's: 'Do you believe in all that, then?'
'Believe in all what?'
'You know - little green men.' (Or flying saucers, or whatever.)
The first time this happened my lengthy explanation was trumped by the driver saying, 'I gave that Erich von Daniken a lift once.'
I've heard it said that SF fans tend to be more sceptical of UFOs and paranormal claims generally than most people, but in my teens I certainly wasn't, so it's cheering to see tale of how a bit of outreach can change someone's mind.
Labels: skiffy
Special weird things
"was not aware of science fiction," arguing that science fiction has become a "self-enclosed world".(Via.)
"When I was 18 it was a genre as accepted as other genres," he said, but now "it is in a special room in book shops, bought by a special kind of person who has special weird things they go to and meet each other."
More plugs
Labels: local, self-promotion, skiffy, writing
Plugs
Labels: self-promotion, skiffy, writing
Well, that explains a lot
- The Charity Commission, 28 September 2006, cited in Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth, Bantam Press, 2009
... on page 436, the last page of a very good book.
Evolution is so last Ice Age ...
Labels: coming attractions, evolution, genomics, local
Last Night of the Book Festival
Well-organised as always, I completely failed to get a complimentary ticket to the Richard Dawkins event at the Book Festival. But I had a £20 note birthday present that I was determined to spend on a signed copy of The Greatest Show on Earth, so I went along last night on the off-chance. The returns queue was ten or so long at 5.30, which didn't look promising. The book wasn't in the bookshop, and in the signing tent I was told it wouldn't be on sale until just before Dawkins' event finished. I ducked into the Yurt (the Festival's canvas green room), grabbed a coffee, had a chat with Faith Brown and Christopher Brookmyre - both of whom urged me to try for a return - and joined the queue about 6.10, by which time the queue was nearly twice as long, but made up of different people than I'd seen earlier. Every minute or two a return came in and we moved forward by one. I got a ticket at 6.28 and dashed to the main tent, getting in a couple of minutes before the doors closed.
Chaired by Ruth Wishart, the event went well: Dawkins read from his book, had a conversation on stage with Ruth Wishart, then took questions from the crowd. I asked him whether he thought scientists of the Left were doomed to misunderstand him. He replied along the lines that he had sometimes been misunderstood as thinking that how the world is was how it ought to be, or that we should model society on Darwinian nature, which was quite the opposite of how he thought society should be. He'd always thought 'the anti-Darwinian party' would be a good slogan for a decent political party. This statement got a round of applause.
So I got to hand over my twenty pounds and get the book signed.
Yay!
(I'm about two-thirds of the way through, and it's vintage Dawkins - good solid stuff, with lots of new material.)