After several years of observing the barrage of praise that’s been heaped upon Cloud Atlas by friends and critics, I finally sat down to read it, convinced it couldn’t possibly live up to the hype. One hundred pages in, I’d already dismissed David Mitchell’s well-loved book as nothing more than a garish, sprawling, unfocused coterie […]
The Culture universe is an undeniably brilliant creation, containing more than one writer’s fair share of imaginative inventions and astonishing moments. I have been impressed with every Culture novel I’ve read, but often complete them wondering what Banks could have done to warm my heart the same way he enchants my brain. After this refreshing […]
Given the recent popularity of post-apocalyptic narratives, it seems a good time to pick up Pat Frank’s Alas, Babylon. Frank’s portrait of a small Florida community coping with nuclear fallout is an early contribution to the genre, one that demonstrates considerable cleverness and technical merit. Sadly, this story of Cold War-era anxiety and ingenuity has […]
I’d never heard of Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) until a friend suggested I read this book. As someone interested in the intersection between gaming and narrative, I think the ARG world is full of promise. Dave Szulborski has written a fine introduction to this embryonic genre; his tripartite offering is a conceptual manifesto, brief history, […]
A hefty portion of humanity’s uniqueness can be traced back to future projection. We constantly weave narratives that stretch moments and months and millennia ahead, even as we fumble to figure out what to do with today, each day. Everyone needs some kind of intellectual framework to navigate this tricky tension, which is where futurists […]
This book came to my attention by way of David Brin, who claims it as mandatory reading for anyone interested in saving the world. I’m not sure if I’d go that far, but the assertion that positive sum games play a critical role in biological and cultural evolution is definitely significant, especially insofar as it […]