The online virtual reality experience that almost every tech giant today wishes to commercially exploit may not catch onIn the 1992 sci-fi dystopia Snow Crash, the author Neal Stephenson imagined a bleak 21st century where the collapse of the global economy had seen governments fall and their power replaced by a few giant businesses. The book is notable for prescience, anticipating the adoption of what was then seen as outlandish technologies like the wireless internet, cryptocurrencies and smartphones, as well as the rise of the gig economy. But it is the book’s prophetic vision of “the metaverse” that has revived interest in the work.That is because Stephenson described the online virtual reality experience that almost every tech giant today wishes to commercially exploit. Last October, Microsoft announced that users of its Teams online meetings app would be able to turn themselves into avatars – the term Stephenson popularised in Snow Crash – to encourage users into virtual interaction. Days later Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, rebranded his company as Meta, with a focus on the potential for virtual worlds. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2022-02-07 19:11:48 UTC ]
Science fiction writers, gazing into the future, envision space-based cargo movers and robots that may eliminate the need for humans to work. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2019-12-31 13:53:59 UTC ]
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Science fiction writers, gazing into the future, envision space-based cargo movers and robots that may eliminate the need for humans to work. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2019-12-31 13:53:59 UTC ]
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Futurist and artist Syd Mead has passed away at 86 due to complications from lymphoma. Even if you don't know his name, you've probably felt his impact on Hollywood, especially on the science fiction genre. Mead designed Blade Runner's world and tech... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2019-12-31 13:01:00 UTC ]
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We're visiting Book Riot's Swords & Spaceships newsletter to get recommendations of 2019 standalone science fiction and fantasy novels. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2019-12-30 11:31:11 UTC ]
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Two related events shaped the last 10 years in science fiction and fantasy—the most transformative we've seen in the history of the genres. Continue reading at Wired
[ Wired | 2019-12-29 14:00:00 UTC ]
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Test your knowledge of women writers with a fun pop quiz. First Round Name the title and author of the first-ever science fiction novel. This Pulitzer-prize winner and Italian translator declared in 2015 that she is now only writing in Italian. Name this author. The 2018 Nobel laureate for... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-12-27 12:00:00 UTC ]
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From The New Yorker’s archive, pieces about science fiction and fantasy, by John Seabrook, Julie Phillips, Colson Whitehead, Margaret Atwood, and Joyce Carol Oates. Continue reading at New Yorker
[ New Yorker | 2019-12-15 11:00:00 UTC ]
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How William Gibson keeps his science fiction real Joshua Rothman, The New Yorker While a lot of sci-fi is obsessed with the distant future, one of the best authors of the genre takes a different approach. The New Yorker explains how William Gibson... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2019-12-14 17:30:00 UTC ]
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I spent most of the year living in a small town in Oregon where I read a lot of student work and finished my MFA thesis. There I read my first but not last book by Octavia E. Butler, Kindred. I borrowed Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements, from a graduate... Continue reading at The Millions
[ The Millions | 2019-12-14 16:00:42 UTC ]
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News and Events Michelle Johnson In 2019 WLT continued publishing fiction, poems, interviews, and essays in translation—publishing more than 50 pieces from languages ranging from Albanian to Zoque—along with pieces by translators about their work. In... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2019-12-10 14:32:34 UTC ]
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The Science Fiction Writers Association does not tell him much, only that he will be taken in the dead of night to shoot down to Los Angeles in a high-speed train. There will be two men, they tell him, who will ride with him and deliver him to his final destination. As she books his […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-12-10 09:48:15 UTC ]
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End-of-year titles, from wild science fiction to road-tripping memoirs, make promising presents. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2019-12-03 18:10:36 UTC ]
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The Massachusetts-based translator has done more than anyone to bridge the gap between Chinese science fiction and American readers. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2019-12-03 10:00:21 UTC ]
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Chinese science fiction is a rich world of diverse, engaging stories that expand one's mind. But with all that is out there, where should you start? Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2019-11-27 11:39:41 UTC ]
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There were too many to choose from. Our reviewers explain their picks, from “The Hanging Artist” to “The Night Tiger” Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2019-11-21 14:12:00 UTC ]
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In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle reads the first novel in Isaac Asimov’s juvenile science fiction series Science fiction set in our own solar system arguably began with Lucian, the classical author whose short satirical piece True History paved the way for... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2019-11-15 15:00:55 UTC ]
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The dense, interconnected network charts decades of collaboration and research. Nature, the multidisciplinary scientific journal founded in London in 1869, celebrates its 150th anniversary this week. Known for its innovative approach to publishing original research across all sorts of scientific... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2019-11-11 08:00:45 UTC ]
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This past summer, I stumbled across a link on social media to Chris Marker’s 1962 science fiction film La Jetée. For those who don’t know it, Marker’s miniature masterpiece—its running time is 28 minutes—mixes black-and-white stills with narration to tell the story of a man who circles back in... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-11-07 09:49:34 UTC ]
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CIXIN LIU IS having a moment. The recent publication in English of his Three-Body Problem trilogy has been rightly hailed as a sea change for Chinese science fiction in translation, garnering myriad awards and receiving wide acclaim — including an endorsement from Barack Obama. The Wandering... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-10-29 17:00:45 UTC ]
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With enough time, the technological challenges of sending humans to Mars and beyond are solvable. But psychologically, we’re not ready to leave our home. In 1945 British science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke—now best known for 2001: A Space Odyssey—correctly predicted the invention of... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2019-10-22 00:00:30 UTC ]
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