Warren Ellis often writes about the weather in his weekly email, Orbital Operations. This week he riffed on a big storm that blew through southern England a few years back and did a lot of damage, segueing from that to a discussion of technology and the future. He was particularly struck by the way the mobile phone caught sci-fi writers by surprise. I won’t ruin the analogy by attempting to paraphrase:
From this perspective, the Great Storm was the mobile phone. It could be seen in the distance, along with a dozen other swirls of stormy weather, but we had no idea it would hit hard enough to change the shape of the world. It hit hard enough to break science fiction, one of our traditional early-warning stations, and it became interpolated into and interrogated by contemporary and popular fiction without science fiction ever getting to lay a finger on it…
The future is a weatherfront, and attempting to predict single lightning strikes is stupid and wasteful. Understand the future as weather, and yourself as standing on the shore looking out to the horizon. Breathe the air and watch the water. There are dozens of different systems acting on the approach of the future. In order to get a handle on what’s coming, you need to be talking to and working with and keeping an eye on many different fields. Not just “technology.” The future is also always social, and economic, and political, and many other things besides, and those things act on the path of the storm. And, if you’re standing on the shore, you know that there are a lot of storms out there, and any one of them could hit like a hurricane.
I didn’t agree with everything he wrote, or even everything I’ve quoted above. But I do like the elegance of the idea. The future as a chaotic weather system. It’s been much on my mind as I immerse myself back into the Axis of Time story world. When I wrote Weapons of Choice I was projecting two decades into the future. Now the opening scenes of the book are just a couple of years away. There are so many things I would change if I could go back and rewrite the series, and I guess there's no reason I can’t do that. Movie franchises get rebooted all the time, and Charlie Stross has already done something right this with his Merchant Princes series, if I recall correctly.
But I won’t do that. I have enough on my hands wrapping up Paris to start a new series I have tentatively called World War 3.1 in my planning documents. And, of course, I’m also returning to the timeframe of the original series to fill in the gaps. What I hope to pull off is the narrative gymnastic trick of writing two books in one series, separated by a decade. We’ll see how that works out.
For now, however, we have Cairo to discuss. The Beta readers are probably more qualified than anybody to dive in at this point, having poured over the manuscript at a molecular level. But I now throw the comment threads open to anybody who wants to join in.
We can make this a general discussion, with spoilers, and open up more specific threads later in the week.
SPOILERS BELOW.
she_jedi reckons...
Posted May 16, 2016
Murphy_of_Missouri ducks in to say...
Posted May 16, 2016
insomniac mutters...
Posted May 16, 2016
Therbs mumbles...
Posted May 16, 2016
I need another happy hour book and this the goods. By happy hour book I mean something to read in the pub after work whilst consuming the daily on tap specials. Beer 'n 'splodey go well together.
Off to the Bezos for me.
Surtac has opinions thus...
Posted May 16, 2016
Slaking my current thirst for 'splosions with Neal Asher's new one, War Factory.
jl is gonna tell you...
Posted May 16, 2016
I gladly carried the tenth-pound extra weight of the ereader in my rucksack, books such as John's were my sole escape in those forbidding mountains. A Chinese recoilless rifle finished off the ereader one fine day, and the incident contributed to my retirement.
On balance, things worked out- now I get to write books (the latest installment of the Valley series, "The Captain's Cauldron", should be out in early June) and hobnob with interesting people like you all!
Once again, it is an honor and a pleasure to be given the chance to entertain people. Thanks! Jason.
Murphy_of_Missouri swirls their brandy and claims...
Posted May 17, 2016
Welcome to the Burger. Ignore the dead cow in John's pool. That is Rhino's fault. Boylan's going to make him pay for the damages.
Rhino mumbles...
Posted May 17, 2016
Did you know that I had to wait almost 10 minutes this morning for the snooty MFA in Fine Arts Barista to make my venti, 2 extra shots, with cream Americano this morning. All the while he was giving me the stink eye for my JB is My Master Now in script above the cover of After America tattoo (It matches the "Yeah, I'm THAT Rhino" tatt. Passive aggressive douche wrote "Lover of plebian explodey lit" on my cup instead of my name. That, my friend, is the definition of real heroics and suffering.
Welcome aboard, Jason and hope that you can take the piss.
Murphy_of_Missouri mumbles...
Posted May 17, 2016
Therbs would have you know...
Posted May 19, 2016
jl reckons...
Posted May 17, 2016
NBlob reckons...
Posted May 17, 2016
* Does Fairfax still have caption editors, or are they just getting someone's red-haired step-child to do it?
pedrogb is gonna tell you...
Posted May 17, 2016
Halwes swirls their brandy and claims...
Posted May 17, 2016
Vovchara mumbles...
Posted May 18, 2016
Therbs would have you know...
Posted May 19, 2016
John Birmingham is gonna tell you...
Posted May 19, 2016
jl has opinions thus...
Posted May 19, 2016
Sudragon is gonna tell you...
Posted May 21, 2016
jl is gonna tell you...
Posted May 21, 2016