Category Archives: literature

who is exchanged?

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zeph’s pop culture quiz #44 Here is a fine noir Cold War scenario. Right at the Iron Curtain government officials are waiting for an exchange of prisoners. But who is exchanged?     Just leave a comment with your educated guess—you can ask for additional hints, too. [Leaving a comment is easy; just click the ‘Leave a comment’ at the end of the post and fill in the form. If it’s the first time you post a comment, it will be held for moderation. But I am constantly checking, and once I’ve approved a comment, your next ones won’t be … Continue reading →

cybernetic science fiction

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  It simply is astounding what a collection you amass on your hard drives over time—and about how many of the collected things you simply forget. I just refound an unfinished draft version of Patricia S. Warrick’s ‘↑Cybernetic Imagination in Science Fiction‘ (1980). Don’t ask me how I got that … I simply can’t remember. Fact of the matter is that I never got the finished book, although it may well contain tons of water on my mills.     On the other hand there is the possibility that I jettisoned ‘Cybernetic Imagination’ on purpose, because I do fear that … Continue reading →

more nuclear follies

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  This is a kind of a follow-up to Japanese artist ↵Isao Hashimoto’s chilly time-lapse map depicting the 2053 nuclear explosions having taken place between 1945 and 1998. I again embedded it above because it’s quite a testament. When I watched these horrific quarter of an hour for the first time at a certain point I thought: They are speaking with each other. There are segments in the animation when suddenly the frequency of nuclear blasts e.g. in the USA speedens up. After a short pause the answer comes as a rapid succession of nuclear fireworks within the Soviet Union. … Continue reading →

proto science fiction

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As the faithful reader might have noticed, I am, among other things, fond of early science fiction—of course always on the hunt for elements of ↵the cyberpunk discourse, and for entries to my ↵according list, where I strive to furnish downlod links as far as technically and legally possible. Now, in the wake of a recent panel on Victorian and Edwardian science fiction at ↑Chicon 7, over ↑at Wondermark there’s a list of according science fiction with download links. The post also hints us at the fine anthology ‘Science Fiction by Gaslight’ (Moskowitz 1968), and a commenter added the two … Continue reading →

william gibson interviews

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  Earlier this year his collection of non-fiction texts, ‘Distrust That Particular Flavor’ (Gibson 2012), was published—now there are some fresh interviews with ↑William Gibson around: the one with io9 above, and a ↑three-part interview at Wired. GIBSON, WILIAM FORD. 2012. Distrust that particular flavor. New York: Putnam Adult. io9-interview via ↑entry at ↑kueperpunk … Continue reading →

assassin’s creed framework

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Although the main plots of the ↑‘Assassin’s Creed’ games have historical settings—during the Third Crusade (Ubisoft Montreal 2007), the Renaissance (2009), and the American Revolution (2012)—the narrative as a whole bows down to ↵the cyberpunk dicourse. The story which delivers the framework decidedly is cyberpunkish: In the present day, or 20 minutes into the future, the evil corporation ‘Abstergo Industries’ abducts one Desmond Miles. In a secret appartment hideaway he is made to connect to the ‘Animus,’ a computer able to revoke ‘genetic memory.’ That way Miles is able to experience the lifes of his ancestors as interactive virtual realities … Continue reading →

a legendary review

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In ↵omega legend I argued that the infestation of the zombie-genre by the ↵cyberpunk discourse is a further mosaic-tile in showing that said discourse gathers more and more momentum. In this Richard Matheson’s novel ‘I am Legend’ (1954) is a keystone, a pivotal point, if you will. At ↑iamlegendarchive I just stumbled upon the very ↑first review of ‘I am Legend,’ published in the same month as the book itself. It contains quite some water on my mills: Most rewarding of 1954′s new novels this month is Richard Matheson’s ‘I Am Legend’ (Gold Medal, 25¢), an extraordinary book which manages … Continue reading →

what is hidden?

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zeph’s pop culture quiz #40 As we have approached some kind of jubilee with #40 of zeph’s pop culture quiz, here is a special one, a double feature, two riddles in one. A man facing away from us, a woman’s head in the foreground. In the scene depicted: What does the man try to hide from the woman present? The aficionados among you may well solve that question in an instant. So, now for the hard one. Partially hidden behind the man’s head there’s a poster on the wall. Which movie is advertised by the poster?     Just leave … Continue reading →

science fiction debt

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Jo Walton’s ↑The Best Science Fiction Ideas in any Non-Fiction Ever: David Graeber’s Debt: The First Five Thousand Years has some nice ideas about why so many science fiction readers and writers are fascinated by ↵anthropologist David Graeber’s book ‘Debt’ (2011): One of the problems with writing science fiction and fantasy is creating truly different societies. We tend to change things but keep other things at societal defaults. It’s really easy to see this in older SF, where we have moved on from those societal defaults and can thus laugh at seeing people in the future behaving like people in … Continue reading →