Movement
22 September 2010
What’s the next likely movement in speculative fiction? According to Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., one of nine writers asked by SF Signal, it’s neo-oriental cyber-imperialism:
Take a near future post-colonial setting — best in Asia, but even the Balkans will do –, place it in a future dominated by natural environmental catastrophe and the global manipulations of Euro-American corporations allied with native elites, include AIs with retro-national qualities (this makes them seem “neo-indigenous”), simulations of archaic beliefs, neo-Ruritarian political intrigues — add a dash of feralized GM animals (cyber-beasts will do) — and a plotline with no possible realistic political resolution, since neither nature nor technology has any redeeming value any more. Good stuff and diversity — from Air to River of Gods to Wind-Up Girl, maybe even City and the City fits here (ironically).
And that’s four of my favourite books right there…
22 September 2010 at 8:51 pm
Hello!!!! Great to see you back in blogworld!!
And right into the thick of dystopian sf steampunk thinking – brilliant! Ooooh I don’t know about nature not having any redeeming value any more though! Hmmm!! But the rest is all good! LOL!
Welcome back!!
take care
x
22 September 2010 at 8:54 pm
Errrr…. and just as always, I pasted a comment I left on Beth Zimmerman’s blog as my website address.
LOL!!
Off I go to hang my head in shame!
Take care
x
22 September 2010 at 9:09 pm
Unfortunately it’s still more on hiatus than not. I’ve been getting pulled several ways in the last few months – oh well, it’s all more material in the long run…
Sorry I haven’t been over to comment much either. Thank you for keeping reading anyway!
22 September 2010 at 9:15 pm
I wondered where you were! I have no idea what you’re talking about on this post! But just the same, glad to see you back.
22 September 2010 at 9:46 pm
Funny you should post this; I’ve been reading a lot about cyborgs and cultural memory at work the past few days.
22 September 2010 at 9:50 pm
@ Kate – that’s the Zeitgeist for you, or perhaps the hive mind… Was it something to do with transhumanism?
22 September 2010 at 10:26 pm
More postgenderism. I was looking at how the representation of postbiological bodies by British TV drama tends to be gendered on binary lines, primarily through references to nationhood (memories of war, desires for the rural idyll, etc)
22 September 2010 at 11:01 pm
Hey Alex! Glad to see you’re back.