Category Archives: Transhuman

By SKIP MENDLER

(Applause.) Thank you. Thank you very much. Please yes, thank you please, be seated. (Applause continues.) Thank you again. (Applause subsides.)

My dear friends and fellow mortals:

It is my distinct pleasure, as well as honor, to address this fifth gathering of the Mortal Americans Party, and to accept your nomination to be your candidate for Prime Speaker of the New American Democratic Republic. (Applause.)

In the Mortal Americans Party, we have, at last, I believe, found the one thing that ultimately unites us all. Our friends in the Transhumanist Life Extension Party and the Eternal Life Party may disagree, of course, and we look forward to our ongoing discussionsbut for now, we have come together here today on one basic fact:

Were all gonna die. (Applause.)

Liberals, conservatives, atheists and believers alikeall races, genders, variations, mutations and modificationswhatever our backgrounds, whatever our present circumstances, whatever our dreams for the future, we have learned that we must always keep that one inalterable fact somewhere in our minds and let it inform all that we do.

For too long, we tried to pretend that death didnt matter. We kept it in the closet. We tried to hold it at bay with vitamin supplements and dentures, Viagra and facelifts. We idolized youth and kept the elderly at a safe distance.

But the pandemics, and the years of upheaval they have caused, have changed all that.

There is no one way to cope with mortality, of course. Some of us are of the eat, drink and be merry philosophy. (Drunken cheers from the Hedonist Caucus.) Some of us take refuge in the comforts of spirituality. (Shouts of Amen! and Namaste!) Some of us embrace the dark aspects of fatalism. (Silence from the goths under the bleachers.) We respect and honor each others decisions, as we would have our own respected and honored. But I think we who have come here, at least, have agreed that it is important to do what we can, in the time that we have, where we are, with what we have been given. (Applause.)

We have learned that it is not just about us, but about those who preceded us in history, and those to come, who will take up our path in the future. We have learned both to take the long view and to live with gratitude in the moment. We have learned that short-term personal gain is unfulfilling when compared to helping our fellow mortals cope with the pains and challenges of life. We have learned that we cannot be uninvolved in the lives of others, however hard we might try. We have learned that while it is good to live independently and self-sufficiently as possible, there is no shame in asking for help. We have learned, painfully, that unbridled self-centeredness, the idea that I gotta get mine, and to hell with the rest of you, does not workneither for an individual nor a nation.

Most of all, we have learned that todaythis momentis ineffably precious. We must use it as best we canwhether it is to go vote, to help a neighbor, to take care of ourselvesbecause we do not know if we will be given another chance.

So let us move forward, my friends, towards the inevitable, with uplifted spirits. Give out of your heart, as our slogan goes, until your heart gives out.

Let me leave you with the words of Phil Ochs:

And I wont be laughing at the lies, when Im gone

And I cant question how, or when, or why, when Im gone

Cant live proud enough to die, when Im gone

So I guess Ill have to do it while Im here.

(Applause.)

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Mortal politics - The River Reporter

What does the future hold? In our new series Imagining the Next Future, Polygon explores the new era of science fiction in movies, books, TV, games, and beyond to see how storytellers and innovators are imagining the next 10, 20, 50, or 100 years during a moment of extreme uncertainty. Follow along as we deep dive into the great unknown.

When Polygon talked to a series of professionals about the biggest ways science fiction has changed over the past decade, they noted shifts in everything from publishing trends to popular themes to the use of social media to build communities. But every one of them touched on one major idea: For the last 10 years, science fiction literature has been radically diversifying, with more stories and books being imported from other countries, and more LGBTQ authors and writers of color being recognized and celebrated in the genre than ever before.

But what does that actually mean to the field? Its easy to say Science fiction is more inclusive than it used to be, or authors are more diverse. But how is that actually effecting change, and what does it mean for the next decade of science fiction? We reached out to a group of BIPOC editors and curators working in science fiction what to ask what kinds of changes theyre seeing in the field so far, and what they think and hope the next decade will hold as a result of the way authorship is changing.

[Ed. note: All quotes have been edited for concision and clarity.]

Nivia Evans, Editor, Orbit/Redhook: What Ive seen as we get a wider array of people in the field is the way traditional tropes or stories suddenly feel fresh and new as soon as theyre taken out of the expected places. Like, The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull is a first-contact story, but it takes place in the Virgin Islands. Some of the beats are familiar the encounter with the alien, and trying to understand what the world is but youre being taken to an island nation thats long been forced to feel insignificant on the global scale, and now theyre the first place of alien contact, and theyre in the public eye. That to me feels exciting. Its what you want to do in the genre overall. In science fiction or fantasy, were used to working with tropes. Thats what people really love. They love seeing the things they grew up with remixed and rehashed. And as soon as you add new voices and cultures, new perspectives, the things people may have been tired of feel original.

Ruoxi Chen, Associate Editor, TorDotCom Publishing: The question being asked in dystopic stories is no longer as simple as, What if this thing thats always happened to marginalized people happened to the people in power? Science fiction is digging into other histories. We talk about science fiction as this genre that always looks to the future, but its very much a genre about history. So a more complicated and intense exploration of that history, which is also a story of our future, is what I see happening now, and what I want to see more of in the future. If the old canon was written by the empire, then the future of the genre is being crafted and shaped by the children and grandchildren of that empire, the people who were affected by those horrible histories. You cant write science fiction in 2020 without looking that in the eye. Both the present and the future are as much about Edward Said as Philip K. Dick.

Christina Orlando, Books editor, Tor.com: I like weird shit! I like things that break traditional formats. I think speculative fiction is primed and ready to be really, really weird. I like post-textual stuff like epistolary novels, like This Is How You Lose the Time War, where you have extra-narrative information. Im also really excited for podcasting. Theres lots and lots of cool stuff by marginalized voices happening in podcasting. When were talking about sci-fi, we cant just talk about literature, because podcasting is narrative fiction that often gets left out of the conversation. And theres a lot of cool stuff like, Jordan Cobbs Janus Descending, a really beautiful podcast thats sci-fi horror by a Black female creator. Theyre doing so many cool things. Im really excited to see where podcasting goes.

Diana M. Pho, Story Producer, Serial Box: With the rise of audiobooks came the rise of indie podcast production companies, which have really contributed to our understanding of sci-fi media. Technology is helping people who would have been considered hobbyists reach a level of production quality indistinguishable from professional houses. The interaction between creators and fandom was already pretty close in sci-fi. Thats always been one of its standout features. And were going to see the two sides merging more and more, resulting in even more interesting ways of interactive storytelling.

Nivia Evans: We all grew up with Western narrative perspectives, like, This is how a story is told. This is how a plot develops. But narrative structure is cultural. When you drill down into how stories are told across the Black diaspora, and whats inherited from different places, you get fresh ways of looking at science fiction. Maybe its not always the traditional heros journey. Maybe things are broken down and reversed, or slightly out of order, with flashbacks or retrospectives, youre piecing together narratives in different ways. MEM by Bethany C. Morrow does a really interesting thing with that, and Rosewater by Tade Thompson, another alien-contact story set in a town called Rosewater in Nigeria. They play with narrative structure and expectations. That can feel messy, but it also makes traditional stories feel fresh and original.

Diana M. Pho: Our understanding of science fiction has grown as its become part of pop culture. Even five years ago, I would have been hard-pressed to explain the butterfly effect in a time-travel story to most people. But now, because theres so much science fiction entertainment in general, there is a more common understanding of what sci-fi means, and it has a broader reach than ever before. The intersection of science fiction culture and pop culture is going to change the next decade. Theres a collision course between what makes realistic fiction, genre fiction, and literary fiction. Its all merging more and more. So were going to start seeing more books that would have been marketed as genre being marketed as commercial mainstream fiction, because people already get the concepts. You dont have to explain anything.

Angeline Rodriguez, Associate Editor, Orbit Books: Readers have invested in infinite specific subgenres because of the curation of experience thats been on the rise in all aspects of our lives. Theres this directed consumer experience thats marketing something very specifically you can go on Goodreads and look at the categories and say, I want a science fiction novel, I want it to have spaceships, I want it to have hyperdrives, I want it to have an ensemble cast. You can search by very narrow parameters, down to the tropes and the narrative experience. The nicheness and specificity of those categories has helped authors find readers who are looking for a very specific thing.

But a lot of publishers are struggling to figure out how to promote discovery, how to have a reader take a chance on a book they might not normally pick up. I think its increasingly important for sci-fi to reinvent itself, to try to introduce readers to something they might not know theyll love.

Ruoxi Chen: A lot of the most exciting work is being done not with books, but with short fiction. FIYAH magazine, Uncanny, Lightspeed there are a bunch of amazing short-form publications. Sometimes the most fascinating stuff is happening in a thousand words, or five thousand, rather than at book length. Longer projects have emerged from those stories, but the barrier to entry is obviously smaller than getting a book contract, so theres so much exciting work happening there. If youre looking for the first breaths of something in the genre shifting, its in the short fiction.

Nivia Evans: Theres the fun side of science fiction. I think we all go into it for the adventure. But the way science fiction started, outside of the pew-pew, shoot-em-up ray-guns aspect of it, is talking about culture and society. I understand the escapism of science fiction, but some of our best books, our classic science fiction, still had political messages. Dune at every point, especially in the later books, is working to tear down the ideas of oligarchy, of divine rulers, of corporations. What we get from reading Ray Bradbury and a lot of great authors like that is social commentary that uses science fiction to look at society as a whole, and take it apart and analyze it.

I dont know if its because I am a person of color, but having authors of color deconstruct society and tie it to things that feel relevant to their lives gives these stories more impact. Youre automatically being pushed to think about the real world within the context of the narrative. To me, that is the best part about science fiction taking this fun, enjoyable text and thinking, How do we extrapolate this to our lives? Is it thinking about what space travel looks like? But then, if were all living in space, is it also looking at how women are treated? You can extrapolate so many things out of science fiction.

Ruoxi Chen: So much classic science fiction presents these dazzling, inventive leaps about what the future could be, but against incredibly socially conservative backdrops. So the shift to inclusivity feels to me like its both a reaction to that old canon, and also something new. I was brought up on a lot of science fiction media that I still love, but if you watch Star Wars or Firefly or Blade Runner, those are visions of the future steeped in Asian aesthetics, Asian culture, and Asian mythology, but stripped of actual Asian people. You can love something that cuts you out, but thats not the future of the genre that I want to see. So it feels reductive to say the new science fiction is by us, for us, but it is a true thing.

It really heartens me that there is enough space in the genre now where you can see, This is Singaporean SF, this is Vietnamese SF, theres Chinese SF, theres SF from the Chinese diaspora. So readers can say, Im interested in this specific reaction from this specific part of a given culture. And authors can say, Were going to break out into a genre of a genre. Ten years ago, [microgenres] were like, Oh, are you into hard military sci-fi, or softer military sci-fi? But now, there are so many little pathways and doorways you can go through, and these writers are all talking to each other.

Priyanka Krishnan, Senior Editor, Orbit Books: I would like to see more imagination in experimenting with narrative structure and the methods of worldbuilding. Worldbuilding in SF/F is expansive, because the settings are often traveling spaceships or warring kingdoms or post-apocalyptic landscapes. But the texture of that worldbuilding lies in the small details, and those details are often very much informed, intentionally or unconsciously, by a writers own experience. So if part of what inclusivity means is for readers to be able to recognize themselves in the small details, then the best way to achieve that is to be publishing stories from a spectrum of voices, and all they can bring to the process of creating unique worlds, even when the basic touchpoints are familiar. I think we still have work to do on that front over the next 10 years. And its not something thats specific to sci-fi, certainly!

Angeline Rodriguez: This is my bias coming through, but I would specifically love to see a return to form for Latinx speculative fiction. Some of the genres earliest origins, in magical realism and surrealism, had their most formative literary movements in Latin America already, with classic authors like Jorge Luis Borges, or Gabriel Garca Marquez, or Machado de Assis. I dont necessarily want the Latin community to try to re-create those genres of bygone eras, so much as capture the spirit of that by once again becoming the standard-bearers of new ways of writing. I think were seeing the beginnings of this starting to happen with authors like Carmen Marie Machado, or Silvia Moreno-Garcia, or Mariana Enriquez, who are reinventing horror in a lot of different ways. I would love to see that happen in depth with science fiction.

Fernando Flores is doing really interesting things with sci-fi about the Texas-Mexico border. He has a book called Tears of the Trufflepig thats satirical sci-fi. Theres a Cuban author who goes by Yoss whos recasting genre conventions, using space opera, to address colonialism in the Caribbean. So often with new writing from underrepresented authors, you see it pitched as, You know, its Lord of the Rings, but diverse! Or Its Dune, but its brown! There are good reasons for doing it that way, based on how the industry operates. Youre often trying to re-create success. But I would like to see not, This is the same old genre you love, but with extra melanin, but new genres entirely, that are born from a non-white experience. Like they presuppose not-whiteness in their origins. I just really want genre to be centered from the margins, ultimately.

Christina Orlando: Id really like to see more science fiction that reimagines systems that no longer serve us. That includes post-capitalist futures and post-carceral-state futures. Id really like to see more fiction that toggles prison abolition and things like that, futures moving beyond capitalism, moving oppression. The trend toward hopepunk that were seeing right now is especially key for marginalized voices. Ive seen a lot of queer writers tackling hopepunk futures, especially imagining queer-normative futures, like the one in Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee. Those are things Im really excited about seeing.

Im also really excited about publishers like FIYAH and smaller short-fiction publishers pushing the envelope and being really leaders in our field, and the Kickstarters that have popped up lately for speculative-fiction magazines coming from marginalized voices. Im really excited to see where that takes us.

Priyanka Krishnan: Personally, I like stories that dare to be optimistic, and I would like to see a lot more of that across the board. Uplifting stories can actually be really helpful and healing for readers. It makes sci-fi a little different from fantasy, because fantasy usually takes place in a secondary world. There are parallels to our lives, but at the end of the day, youre talking about secondary worlds and magic, whereas with science fiction, youre talking about our possible futures. So lately, Ive been moving away from darker, colder, dystopian reads, and wanting stories that dare to imagine how we get past these dark moments into a better future.

Angeline Rodriguez: I would like to see authors feeling less constrained by genre checkpoints. What a science fiction writer is can be up for interpretation and redefinition. In the earliest origins of the genre, greats like Ursula K. Le Guin and Octavia Butler oscillated between writing science fiction and fantasy with great facility. They blurred the lines between those two genres. And their science fiction contains many other disparate genres, like horror. They were able to experiment with genre in a way that as markets solidified and consistency of author brand became more important, we saw less of.

Were seeing a renaissance of that percolating, with authors like N.K. Jemisin or Ann Leckie, who have published books in a variety of genres, and have reinvented science fiction so it more resembles epic fantasy, or writing fantasy that borrows the best parts of science fiction. They havent been as limited by genre walls. It would be really nice to see underrepresented authors I just know there are so many people with just a wealth of wild ideas reinvent those genre conventions.

Christina Orlando: So this may be my favorite thing thats ever happened in my whole life: Oscar Isaac did an interview about how he didnt fit in the seats in the Millennium Falcon, because they werent built for ethnic hips. We have a lot to talk about in science fiction about the future of body positivity, the future of non-white lead characters and non-white bodies being normalized. Were talking a lot right now about character descriptions being racially charged, and how we can move away from that by normalizing ethnic features, and having machinery and spaceships built for non-white bodies, in ways that celebrate them. In the same way, we can talk about the trans experience being portrayed in futurism. I just want more people to look like me! Itll be important in the future to have different types of characters, without demonizing the way we look.

Diana M. Pho: All the big corporations are trying to break demand down into algorithms and individual pathways, to figure out what people want, and how they access them. Because of that, I think writers are being bolder and braver. Marginalized writers back been held back historically by feeling they had to figure out the game, like, what does it take to succeed if you are a person of color, if youre queer, if youre poor? How do you break into these circles that seem inaccessible to you? Some marginalized writers were thinking, Weve gotta build our own outlets, weve got to do it ourselves. Others were trying to assimilate in order to get published. Over the next 10 years, I think the idea of assimilation in general will be broken down. Writers will be able to feel more open about writing based on their experiences, based on their communities, really tackling issues that they previously might have been afraid to talk about, in fear of sounding too niche.

Christina Orlando: We talk a lot about the X-Men problem, where there are sci-fi stand-ins for racism. Were exploring racism or prejudice, but the victims are mutants or aliens or robots, or not human in some way. Its implied that were talking about racism, but we dont actually talk about race. Those are things I want to move away from. I think its an instinct for sci-fi writers to talk about the other in this way. But we need to talk about more sophisticated levels. What does it mean if someone is Latinx in space, and Mexico doesnt exist? What does it mean to imagine our culture in that kind of future? I want to see us moving past the metaphors science fiction has been relying on for a really long time.

Diana M. Pho: People have already talked about diversity, inclusion, and representation as super-important. But linked to that idea is the concept of community and character-driven narratives, and the importance of specificity. Often in mainstream publishing, people talk about the concept of universality your story has to be universal to reach the broadest audience possible in order to be a commercial success. Now, I think that sense of universality is being broken down in favor of specificity. Specificity will now be linked to what makes a universal story, as opposed to trying to encapsulate a broad, general idea of humanity.

Angeline Rodriguez: I would love to see sci-fi contend more with realism, which sounds paradoxical, but its really not. A lot of people think of sci-fi inherently as escapism or surrealism. But I think its a genre that can very much reflect our reality in a way that makes realist novels look like fantasy. If youre escaping to a supposedly realist world, like, Im an Irish schoolgirl in love with my much more popular classmate, these things also have their artifices and conventions. We need to come to terms with the fact that sci-fi is not inherently a non-realist category. In a lot of ways, its more equipped to reckon with our injustice in a way other genres arent. I would like to see more reckoning with colonialism, with colorism, with wealth inequality, with the power of the chauvinist governments. People outside the genre often want to assume its all just like spaceships and laser beams, but theres usually something much closer to home powering that engine.

I think sci-fi is uniquely qualified to do that work, specifically, because its a counterfactual genre. Its compelling you to imagine things not as they are. Obviously you can use that to imagine a better future, a utopic future, but you can also use it to imagine a world where the dystopic qualities of the real world are highlighted in a particular way that makes them easier to reckon with.

Priyanka Krishnan: There are a lot of authors coming out of China, and a lot of works in translation from there. I dont know that India has matched up in terms of being a market to that level, but I dont think thats due to a lack of voices in this space. Its definitely a place I would like to be tapping into more in terms of seeking out new voices, whether its works in translation, or not. There are a lot of really interesting things to explore for a writer coming out of India if youre talking about the future. A lot of sci-fi is obviously based on current conditions, and whether youre talking about climate change or population issues or class disparity, theres a lot of subject matter to explore in India. Im definitely seeing far fewer Indian sci-fi authors than I would like. I hope thats something that will continue to change over the next 10 years.

Christina Orlando: Science fiction helps us imagine possibilities, but I struggle with that a lot. I dont want to put that work on to writers. Its not really their job to imagine better futures for humanity. I think speculative fiction, sci-fi writers especially, like doing that, but we shouldnt be relying on writers to do that. That should be the job of people in charge, like politicians and world leaders.

I want to stay away from saying, Fiction inspires people, and we want everyone to take up arms like Katniss Everdeen! I think thats really reductive. But I also think reading fiction that imagines better futures, where people see themselves represented and see possibilities reflected that they maybe never thought were possible, that does crack people open to question how theyre represented in the real world. Its not about giving answers, but allowing for more questions.

Diana M. Pho: Reading creates empathy, and connected to empathy is curiosity. Theres so much sci-fi content because there are so many different types of stories, and people are always looking for something new. Thats a driving force for them to take a chance on stories by marginalized creators, stories outside their comfort zone, stories that take place in a setting they may not live in, or a society that may have not encountered before in real life, but will definitely read about in a book. I think people are looking for that sense of originality and newness.

Angeline Rodriguez: No matter where genre goes, there are hundreds and hundreds of sci-fi books published every year. The books people have loved, and continue to love, that might be a certain formula, or might be a certain type of person writing them that people dont want to see change those are still going to be published. The genre expanding to new audiences doesnt mean theres less of the pie for the existing audience. This is about making the pie bigger in general. Some people are always going to perceive diversity as If you have something, I cant have something, which couldnt be further from the truth. Were trying to make the audience even bigger and more inclusive, and more adventurous.

To conclude each interview, we asked participants to recommend a few books that represent what they want to see in the future of science fiction.

Angeline Rodriguez: Fernando Flores Tears of the Trufflepig is Thomas Pynchon with a punk-rock sensibility, and a great example of what SF situated in the trap door between the real and unreal can do it plays with the borders of genre constantly, taking place quite literally on an alternate-universe Texas-Mexico border where a third wall is being erected and a black market of extinct animals and indigenous pain flourishes. Its a funhouse mirror of our headlines that gets to the crux of why they exist so much more effectively and cleverly than the latest realistic white-penned narco-thriller.

And I love Marissa Leviens novel The World Gives Way because it takes the generation ship, which is such a classic SF setting, and grounds it so thoroughly in a day-to-day that looks and feels so much like our own, and is subject to its same hazards and heartbreaks, that it feels even stranger in a way than the far-future visions of Gene Wolfe or Arthur C. Clarke.

Nivia Evans: I mentioned Rosewater by Tade Thompson. Its super-smart and ambitious, but also very grounded and accessible. One of my favorite books is Famous Men Who Never Lived, by K. Chess. Its really fun. It has multi-dimensional travel, but its so character-focused and grounded. Its the story of a person from a parallel dimension coming to ours as a refugee, and going on the hunt for their favorite science-fiction novelist, who was super-famous in their world, and never really took off in ours. I think thats just a clever way of talking about lost culture and what it means to have to start new. Another of my favorite books recently is A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White. Its all the joys of science fiction a big ensemble cast on a quest.

Priyanka Krishnan: I love Becky Chambers, who wrote The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, A Closed and Common Orbit, and Record of a Spaceborne Few. Theyre stories about character relationships, and how we take care of each other. Theres a lot about innovation, and aliens, and space adventures, but theres just a warmth and compassion to her storytelling. Her Wayfarers series is about misfit crews, humans and aliens alike, having adventures on ships. Its very familiar territory for SF readers, but there is such heart to her storytelling, and thoughtfulness in the way she creates her characters and explores their relationships. Her books are like a cozy sweater!

And C.A. Fletchers A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World is a wonderful post-apocalyptic story that manages to capture both the desolation and the beauty of traveling through the ruins of the world, and it features some very good dogs, none of whom are harmed, dont worry. And I finally recently read All Systems Red, the first in the Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells, which I can only describe as delightful.

Christina Orlando: I have to shout out my man Tochi Onyebuchi. Riot Baby is the most spectacular thing Ive read in a really long time. Ken Lius The Hidden Girl and Other Stories just blew my mind. I went bonkers for a solid three days reading that. Its just so wild and exciting. It tackles a lot of big questions about the future of technology, and how we communicate, and keep relationships going over the internet. Thats really exciting to me. I mentioned Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee, which is a queer-normative future with mechs, which is always fuckin cool. Theres a lot of stuff coming out next year that Im really excited about. S. Qiouyi Lu has a cyberpunk book coming out from Tor.com Publishing next year, which is called In the Watchful City. S is a spectacular, smart human being. So Im very excited about that.

Ruoxi Chen: Tochi Onyebuchis Riot Baby was written in the wake of whats been happening in America. Hes responding to Eric Garner, to Tamir Rice, to that entire history. Its main characters have superpowers, and its got elements of classic anime, Gundam Wing, and Akira, but all of that is rolled into how terrifying and amazing it is to be Black in America.

On the space-opera side, Aliette de Bodard, who has every award on planet Earth, and probably some other worlds, is doing incredible work with her Xuya universe, which is far-future space opera. But the originating premise is that China discovered the Americas before Europe did, and it kind of springs from there. So when I mentioned seeing Asian space opera and sci-fi created largely by white creators with almost zero Asian people in it, Aliette is writing what feels like an answer to that. Shes Vietnamese, and just to see her take on Sherlock Holmes and Watson as sentient spaceships, in the context of a Vietnamese-inspired space Empire, thats incredible. But as far-future as it is, its rooted in history. So theres a lot of fascinating work being done in that space. Maybe 20 years ago, it would have just been referred to as Asian science-fiction/fantasy in a really broad way. The most you could have hoped for is a progressive white writer who bothered to do some research. But now, you see the diaspora writing for themselves.

Diana M. Pho: Lettie Prell is a really wonderful short-fiction writer. All her stories explore transhumanism, and are based on the premise that the Singularity is not a one-time event, it will happen in different communities all across the world. So theyll all have a different understanding of what it means to have a transhuman identity, to incorporate that into their communities in different ways. I really love that.

Vina Jie-Min Prasad is another short-fiction writer exploring science fiction in innovative ways, but with a really strong sense of fun. A lot of their stories have to do with robotics and the future, but also families and how they intersect, and how do you build new connections? And P. Djl Clark has mostly written in fantasy. He has a background as an academic historian, which really feeds into the type of stories that he tells, and the focus on not just having a really great, action-filled story with interesting characters, but also putting technology in context, which really pushes authors forward, and makes the ones that stand out, stand out.

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How the new diversity is transforming science fictions future - Polygon

Emma Thompson in Years and Years.

OUR RATING

5/5 Stars

WHAT IT'S ABOUT:

When a celebrity comes to power in Britain on a populist platform, society's changes are seen through the eyes of one family.

WHAT WE THOUGHT:

Years and Years is a fascinating look into what the not too distant future could look like. Told through the eyes of the Lyon family in the UK, this almost dystopian look at what the world is heading for in terms of technology, celebrities becoming politicians, how seemingly logical people can vote for the worst possible candidate and the butterfly effects of those decisions.

Russell T. Davies is an excellent writer, and it's because of his stint as the showrunner on Doctor Who that I don't think anyone should ever skip Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor. Davies' writing for both Eccleston and David Tennant's Tenth Doctor were incredible, and it's this same amazing calibre of writing that makes the characters in Years and Years shine. In just one episode you have formed some sort attachment to most of the main characters.

This is an emotionally involving story about a close-knit family who, in their ordinariness, makes them the perfect vehicle for telling this tale of how easily things can go downhill. It's a somewhat terrifying watch in that this is not such a far-reaching concept.

The way Daniel's (Russel Tovey) marriage is built-up and falls apart in one and a half episodes is heart-wrenching and so deeply complicated and once again comes down to brilliant writing. His subsequent relationship with Ukrainian refugee Viktor (Maxim Baldry) is so beautifully played out.

Grandmother Muriel (Anne Reid) is an interesting character in that she owns up to her prejudices, but then is completely accepting of things like homosexuality and is just the perfect character to hold up as a mirror to the older generation.

And while this isn't necessarily a sci-fi show, there are elements of it in here. Daughter Bethany's (Lydia West) whole storyline about wanting to be transhuman and turning her hand into a mobile phone is reminiscent of an episode of Black Mirror; it's almost scary in its inevitability.

Speaking of fear, this show is brilliant in how the fear reaches out and grabs hold of you. There is nothing more terrifying than hearing a war raid siren in this day and age. There's a scene where the family is doing an ordinary thing like celebrating their gran's birthday when every TV channel switches to an emergency broadcast and the raid siren goes off, and the fear, panic and confusion is palpable. It's so brilliantly done.

Emma Thompson gets a special shout out here - while her character is not in any way involved with the Lyon family her politics are a talking and sometimes sore point amongst the family. And while their bond is stronger than that of a celebrity politician's, it is a reflection of how, even within a close-knit family, politics can infiltrate and cause drama.

I would recommend you spend six hours of your life watching this show. It's a fascinating watch, and it leaves you with so much to think about, especially in the current state we find our world in.

WATCH THE TRAILER HERE:

WATCH IT NOW ON SHOWMAX

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Years and Years - News24

Biohackers Assemble is the largest virtual biohacking event of 2020 set to happen in November 2020. The event will host the top biohackers of the industry.

A very broad term, Biohacking can range from taking the adequate amount of sunlight to treating oneself under infrared lights, from consuming a balanced diet to swallowing fifty supplement pills a day, from optimizing ones senses through regular exercises to implanting chips and becoming cyborgs. All fall under the one umbrella of Biohacking.

At this crucial point when new world order is set to commence, a holistic Biohacking event called the Biohackers Assemble attempts to bring forth the plethora of unexplored ideas that still are a mystery to the modern man of the modern world.

Powerfully packed with experts from the arena, the event stands in full force to take the attendees on a futuristic voyage. The masters are all set to unravel their novel ideas and thoughts on the past, present, and future of Biohacking.

This momentous two-day virtual event is set to be hosted on different continents with the convenient facility of live streams. With over 50 speakers, that include renowned technologists & entrepreneurs, medical doctors, nutritionists & scientists, professional Biohackers & transhumanists along with many performing artists, the event ensures to produce 100+ hours of premium content on Biohacking.

The event not only caters to biohackers or potential biohackers but to any enthusiast of futuristic thought that is soon to take the world by a storm. Entrepreneurs & executives, investors & innovators, technologists & early adopters, medical & wellness professionals, academics & authors, journalists & students are all welcome to reap the benefits of the two-day virtual event.

The event will offer enormous opportunities to virtually meet and greet with like-minded professionals from across the globe while also having a good chance of being funded from early-stage angel investors. Entrepreneurs can also choose to leverage this platform in an attempt to showcase their products and services to get their brand noticed by hundreds of people at once.

Endeavoring to turn a new page in the history of Biohacking, the Biohackers Assemble will push the boundaries further to understand what it is truly to be a human and to optimize it in its full capability.

To know more, visit: https://www.biohackersassemble.com/

The rest is here:
Biohackers Assemble - The Largest Virtual Biohacking Event of 2020 - PR.com

Editors note: The Front Page is a biweekly newsletter from The Objective, a publication that offers reporting, first-person commentary, and reported essays on how journalism has misrepresented or excluded specific communities in coverage, as well as how newsrooms have treated staff from those communities. We happily share each issue with Nieman Lab readers.

Its Friday, October 23. This is issue 10 of The Front Page.

On Monday, Vice reported that reporter Jeffrey Toobin was suspended by The New Yorker for masturbating during a work Zoom call:

Two people who were on the call told Vice separately that the call was an election simulation featuring many of the New Yorkers biggest stars: Jane Mayer was playing establishment Republicans; Evan Osnos was Joe Biden, Jelani Cobb was establishment Democrats, Masha Gessen played Donald Trump, Andrew Marantz was the far right, Sue Halpern was left wing democrats, Dexter Filkins was the military, and Jeffrey Toobin playing the courts. There were also a handful of other producers on the call from the New Yorker and WNYC.

Both people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak freely, noted that it was unclear how much each person saw, but both said that they saw Toobin jerking off.

But on Tuesday, Brian Stelter and Oliver Darcy, two of CNNs prominent media reporters at Reliable Sources, described the situation as Toobin being sidelined. In a forgiving and uncritical 300 words, centering Toobin as a victim, CNNs story does little to convey what actually happened.

Some journalists were even more explicit, going beyond an implicit frame of forgiveness to say that what Toobin did wasnt that bad. For example, Vinay Menon at The Toronto Star writes: Horrified by Jeffrey Toobins penis? Put it away, for now.

Weve linked the piece, but dont read it (for your own sake). Instead, read EJ Dickson in Rolling Stone: Why are men so compelled to defend jacking off on a work Zoom?

The SacBee, a McClatchy property, proposed tying journalists pay to the number of clicks their articles get. This is something that hasnt seriously been floated as a viable newspaper model in a few years, but owner Tony Hunter thinks Sam Zell had it right.

The Pacific Media Workers Guild, currently representing the Sac Bee Guild, issued an even-keeled list of concerns over the potentially destructive and poorly thought out move.

Not only would this system reward shallow news practices like click-baity headlines, it would also actively detract from less sexy but just-as-crucial news topics like infrastructure or voting legislation. While the general trend for shallow news isnt unheard of in the industry, the proposal means that a journalists earnings will depend on it.

In an age where reporters are already asked to be deeply involved in their communities yet neutral it seems particularly hypocritical.

Meanwhile, Hunter has yet to address the tweets or the issue beyond internal emails, favoring instead to retweet advice from leadership speakers.

Last week, workers at Al Da Dallas and The Dallas Morning News voted to unionize by a margin of over 75%. By winning the vote, employees now have the right to negotiate for a contract after the National Labor Relations Board confirms the election results. News unions are scarce in Texas the News is only the second in nearly 30 years but this vote bodes well for other area publications, including the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

In the Northeast shops with the NewsGuild of New York are welcoming a number of successes: On October 16, The Markup Union announced that they not only unionized, but were voluntarily recognized by management. And more recently, staff with the Wirecutter Union and the Buzzfeed News Union reached tentative agreements with their respective companies on just cause with no exceptions. The New York Mag Union is continuing to fight for just cause at the virtual bargaining table, but members say the ongoing discussion has been meaningful.

Staffers with Bustle Digital Group are unionizing with the Writers Guild of America, East, and hope to ban at-will employment, create a diverse and equitable workspace without tokenization, and establish more explicit editorial standards. More than 200 employees at Bustle, Elite Daily, Input, Inverse, Mic, Nylon, Romper, and The Zoe Report are still awaiting formal recognition from Bustle Digital Group.

Ethnic media outlets play a crucial role in informing communities that might not feel served through mainstream media. But most of them arent easily accessible online or are print-only. Get Current Studio aims to offer ethnic media publishers a baseline set of technologies they can adopt and adapt.

The Objective spoke with Michael Grant, a visual journalist, designer, and co-founder of Get Current Studio, about how being a designer impacts his storytelling, the relationship between journalism and technology, and building a less transactional, more inclusive media landscape.

Heres a portion of the conversation, edited for length and clarity. You can read the rest here.

Janelle Salanga: How do you define objectivity and what role do you see that playing in the journalism that ethnic media publishers produce?

Michael Grant: The status quo has been defined and its been the driver of journalism for some time now. Its no secret that white men have led newsrooms and leadership in newsrooms, so journalism has so much more room to grow because we havent seen all the ideas. There are tons of people who have been left out of producing journalism and being supported. One of the first things I learned out of J-school was that its hard to be a journalist because its hard to get paid. As a result of that, who have we missed out on?

Theres so much opportunity to give journalism the reach that it should have always had, and to build more equity into the model of journalism while being sure that its supporting folks who arent and havent been at the table. So Im curious to see what happens in the future of journalism, if we can start to bring down the barriers of entry into journalism and change what we celebrate in journalism as legitimate and what people say is great journalism.

If youre interested in pitching to us, you can read more about our process here. All pitches should be sent to submissions@objectivejournalism.org.

$$$ denotes a paid event.

This edition of The Front Page was written by Holly Piepenburg and Marlee Baldridge, with a Q&A by Janelle Salanga and editing by Gabe Schneider. The Objective was cofounded by Schneider, the Washington correspondent for MinnPost, and Baldridge, a Masters student at the University of Missouri (and a former Google News Initiative fellow at Nieman Lab).

Continued here:
Keep your pants on, everyone (and quit defending the male journalists who don't) - Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard

Peter Watts Blindsight looked at first contact with aliens in a different way when it was first published in 2006, and its been one of those books that friends have fervently recommended in the years since.

One fan has taken it upon himself to adapt as a short film, which he released this week: a short CGI short that looks absolutely stunning.

The project comes from Danil Krivoruchko, whos spent the last four years working on it. It features a voice over that introduces us to the basic premise of the plota ship sent out to the edge of the solar system to explore an object broadcasting a signal, its crew of trans-human astronauts dealing with the strange extraterrestrials that they encounter. Along the way, we get a couple of scenes from the crews perspective as they explore the object, as well as some gorgeous space vistas. Its well worth a watch, especially in 4K resolution.

Accompanying the short is a very cool website that Krivoruchko and his team put together (I found it easiest to navigate the site on my iPad), which provides an in-depth behind-the-scenes look at the project. The space suit section, for example, details Watts description of the spacesuit from the books third chapter, then explains their thinking behind how they envisioned it, a number of reference photos, responses from Watts as they went through the production, and final imagery that they came up with.

Other sections cover the design of the Rorschach artifact, the spaceship Theseus, the equipment, the alien scramblers, ship interfaces, and the characters.

In another section, Krivoruchko outlines how he came to the book and how the project came to be. He read it in 2009 when it was released in Russia. It was a bit of a cult hit amongst his peers in the design world, and he was blown away by the amount of technical, scientific and psychological details Peter Watts packed into the novel while still keeping it a tense and fascinating read.

After reading it again a couple of years later, he reached out to Watts with his appreciation, and spoke with some of his friends, wanting to create some digital renders of the novels scenes and elements. The project began to grow, he explains. Initially, we wanted to make a bunch of still frames. Creating a full CG animated short felt too time-consuming and ambitious, he writes, but as time passed, more and more images were made, which helped attract even more incredibly talented people to the project. As the team grew, we realized that we now had enough resources to pull off animation.

He and his friends realized they couldnt do the entire novel, but they could adapt it. They took the story apart and figured out what scenes they wanted to create, then plotted it out, changing it up a bit from the novels structure, opting to tell the story from the end, and work their way forward. From there, they began modeling each element and scene, bouncing ideas off of Watts as they did so.

Danil reached out to me pretty close to the start of the process, Watts commented. They were in the Lets make a tribute fan site phase, which as I understand it fell somewhere between the lets do a couple of CG illustrations for the rifters gallery and Lets blow off the doors with a trailer from an alternate universe where someone made a movie out of Blindsight phases.

As Krivoruchko and his team came up with ideas, they sent them along to Watts, who provided some suggestions and what his mindset was when he was writing the book. Essentially, I let them read my mind, he says. Theyd come to me with their vision of a spacesuit or a scrambler, and Id tell them how it compared to the images that were in my head when I was writing the novel.

Sometimes theyd present an image that wasnt much like the one in my head at allbut their vision was so much better than mine that Id just nod wisely and sayYes, yes, thats exactly right.And Danil would marvel at what a master of descriptive prose I must be, to be able plant such precise imagery in the readers mind using nothing but abstract black scratches on a page.

On his website, Krivoruchko provides some of the messages that he exchanged with Watts, who enthusiastically cheered them on as they showed him what they were coming up with.

The final result is a nearly five minute long take on the novel with its own unique vantage point, but which otherwise captures the look and feel of the book. On his blog, Watts calls it a small masterpiece, and says that hes honored and humbled by the work of the team.

Read the original:
Watch This Superb Fan Adaptation of Peter Watts' Blindsight - tor.com