The Early Days of a Better Nation

Sunday, March 30, 2014



Events for April

I have two events at the Glasgow literary festival AyeWrite!. The first, on Friday 4 April, is a panel in memory of Iain Banks, with reminiscences and readings by me, Ron Butlin, and other friends of Iain.

4 Apr 2014 6:00 P.M - 7:00 P.M at the Mitchell Library

The second, on Thursday 10 April, is a conversation between me and Robert Shearman (Dr Who writer, horror writer, former Writer in Residence on the MA Creative Writing course, and all-round good guy) on what the future holds and the present conceals.

10 Apr 2014 6:00 P.M - 7:00 P.M at the Mitchell Library

The following week, I'm giving a two-hour workshop at the Edinburgh Science Festival, on The Science in your Science Fiction: How to get it right. It'll cover inspiration, research, the dark arts of infodumping and incluing, and much else, and will conclude with a not-too-scary writing exercise.

Date: 16 April 2014, starting at 6 pm at the National Library of Scotland. Suitable for ages 14 and up, it costs £10 / £8.
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Friday, March 28, 2014



World-Building the Real World


Last week there was a brief flurry of interest in a 'NASA study' that predicted the collapse of civilization. The study turned out not to be by NASA and to be founded on eight equations. This sort of thing makes soothsaying look solid.

A global industrial civilization has never existed before, and while highly interdependent it seems to contain enough redundant links to make it resilient. A lot of horrible things could happen, but it would go on. Some civilizations do go on for thousands of years. China and Egypt spring to mind, but even Europeans could just about get away with claiming that the Roman Empire is still around, and they're living in it. That said, there are imaginable if unlikely events that could knock over civilization across a wide area or even the world without necessarily wiping everyone out. A limited nuclear war or an unstoppable plague or an asteroid impact or a big coronal mass ejection could kill billions and still leave millions of survivors struggling to cope.

The Knowledge Full Cover_lowres
Most of them wouldn't have a clue what to do. A precondition of an advanced industrial civilization is a very fine-grained division of labour. This makes astonishing achievements routine, but necessarily leaves everyone involved a little vague about the details of what everyone else does. The premise of Lewis Dartnell’s new book, The Knowledge, is that it’s a manual for the survivors of a disaster that wiped out 90% of humanity but left the infrastructure basically intact. What would they need to know in order to survive and start again?

Dartnell starts his thought experiment with ‘the grace period’ in which there are still useful supplies to be got from the cities, and goes on through rebooting agriculture, food and clothing, medicine, mining, manufacturing, transport, electricity, communications, chemistry … and so on, all the way to ‘the greatest invention’: science itself. At each step, he uses his attention-grabbing premise to make the mundane details of how to make everything from bread to soap to cement to steel interesting and interconnected. I didn’t know that a lathe is a sort of von Neumann machine, or that retrieving at least one long-threaded screw from the ruins is crucial. The conclusion is inspiring, the guide to further reading gives due recognition to post-apocalyptic SF, and the bibliography can keep you reading until the asteroid comes.

I can see this book becoming a manual for writers of post-apocalyptic SF and historical fiction, steampunk and the like, but far more important is its relevance to the rest of us in understanding how the world we live in actually works.

I was sent an advance proof for comment, and I’ve just received a fine hardback with my quote on the back: ‘This is the book we all wish we’d been given at school: the knowledge that makes everything else make sense.’ True to my word, that copy’s going to the nearest high school library. But I’ll buy the paperback and keep it in easy reach, and in a safe place.  

 
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Friday, March 14, 2014



Impending commemorations

This Saturday afternoon (March 15) I'm at Huddersfield Literary Festival, for a Celebration of the Life and Works of Iain Banks. I'll be on for a half-hour talk on the poetry of Iain Banks, followed by a panel with John Jarrold and David Barnett about Iain's contribution to SF. Details.

Next Thursday (March 20) at 6.30 pm I'm giving a short welcome and talk at the opening of the University of Stirling's Iain Banks exhibition.
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Saturday, March 08, 2014



Links



Here's a Scottish Book Trust podcast in which I talk with Ryan Van Winkle about Descent. Kirsty Logan and Tim Sinclair are on before me, also talking about their new books.

I have a review of The Science Fiction Handbook, edited by Nick Hubble and Aris Mousoutzanis (Bloomsbury, 2013) in the Morning Star. Basically I outline the history of SF criticism as I understand it and then heartily recommend the book, which I have read and have already started lending to students.
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Tuesday, March 04, 2014



Descent launch at Blackwell's



My novel Descent (UK/ANZ/Amazon UK/ sample here) is being launched at Edinburgh's fine bookshop Blackwell's on Thursday 6 March.

Details:

Date: Thursday 6th March
Time: 6.30pm
Venue: Blackwell’s Bookshop, 53-62 South Bridge, Edinburgh, EH1 1YS


I'll be reading from the novel and answering questions and generally talking about it. I've described Descent as being 'about flying saucers, hidden races, and Antonio Gramsci's concept of passive revolution, all set in a tale of Scottish middle class family life in and after the Great Depression of the 21st Century. Almost mainstream fiction, really.'

The event finishes at 8 pm, and no doubt discussion will continue in one or more of the local pubs.

This event is ticketed, but tickets are FREE. Tickets are available from the front desk at Blackwell’s Bookshop or by phoning 0131 622 8218

For more information or if you would like a signed copy please contact Ellie Wixon on
0131 622 8222 or ellie.wixon@blackwell.co.uk
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