week 30 / 2026: here and elsewhere
In this episode: contemplating the end of the Western cosmopolitan urge; hanging with the New York neoLuddites; and Silicon Valley’s highly selective readings of science fiction. Plus, G K Chesterton!
Latest
week 29 / 2026: protocols and performances
In this episode: Scott Smith on “protocol communities”; the face as the site of surgical interventions into reality itself; and another look at “body futurism” as dark enantiodromia.
week 28 / 2026: flats and boxcars
In this episode: can you make the words come without effort? You might think your LLM is helping, but really it’s a fast track to empty mediocrity. In the meantime, why not get a grip on your curiosity and (re)learn to enjoy reading books the old-fashioned way?
week 27 / 2026: progress and myopia
This week, a debunking of bio-factory protein production, which leads us to a broader look at solutionism, and the frustrating impossibility of simply swapping one metanarrative for another. Plus, the short fiction of Iain M Banks...
week 26 / 2026: filtration and modulation
Take a peek inside to find a strong point of view on point-of-view, to learn the differences between writing for the page and for the screen, and to consider the importance of abeyance in our dealings with futurity…
week 25 / 2026: rest and relaxation
Weeknotes are having a week off.
week 24 / 2026: showing and telling
Like science fiction literature, a well-executed work of experiential futuring can look prophetic in hindsight—but it’s what they get wrong that tells you the most in hindsight. Plus: when to show, and when to tell?
Weeknotes
week 36 / 2026: revise and reassess
In this instalment, three things merit a second look: the impact of three- and two-wheel EVs on oil demand; Francis Fukuyama’s “The End of History?”; and—much as it pains me to admit it—Stewart Brand’s “pace layers” model.
week 35 / 2026: scholars and sandpiles
In this instalment, I try to rescue the baby of Kevin Munger’s vision for a more public-facing form of academic scholarship from the bathwater of handwavey “AI” enthusiasm.
week 34 / 2026: boats and boxes
In this instalment: container shipping is starting to hit its logistical limits, at least on the land, even as it enables some seriously dirty business models. Plus: Byung-Chul Han, and E J Swift’s Clarke Award-winning novel When There Are Wolves Again!
week 33 / 2026: out and about
Attention conservation notice: weeknotes are (sort of) on holiday.
week 32 / 2026: nature and culture
In this episode: we wander into the forests of medieval Europe, return with the underlying imagery of Enlightenment and Romanticist thought, and then feel for their bones beneath the skin of the present.
week 31 / 2026: art and artifice
In this episode: a long hard look at the distinction between art and artifice, and what it means to make things for their own sake. Plus: technical aspects of the new Ann Leckie novel!
week 30 / 2026: here and elsewhere
In this episode: contemplating the end of the Western cosmopolitan urge; hanging with the New York neoLuddites; and Silicon Valley’s highly selective readings of science fiction. Plus, G K Chesterton!
News
schedule adjustment notice
Hello, worldbuilders!
Just a quick note to let you know: it occurred to me this morning that my spending a bunch of time compiling weeknotes which don't get emailed to you, only to then spend a shorter amount of time two days later writing a short note alerting
hot in the city 2nite
Hello worldbuilders! It's 28°C in Malmö this afternoon, and it's reliably been around that temperature in the afternoon for close to a week now.
I quite like hot weather, really, but a lot of other folk are less keen—and I dare say I'
call it in, take it off
Hello, worldbuilders! It's been quiet here this last week, because around this time on the Sunday previous I started thinking "hmm, I don't feel so great", and by the evening I was feeling (as we Brits say) like death warmed over.
Hell knows what
less magic, more traffic
Hello, worldbuilders! It feels a lot like the roundabout just hasn't stopped spinning over the week just gone—and next week it's The Conference, which means the metaphorical carny will be reaching out his hairy hand to give it another good shove... which means there'
pass the vol-au-vents
Hello, worldbuilders! And welcome to those of you who've signed up in the last few days. Glad you could come—take a chair, get yourself a drink. How are things?
We've got no Actual Announcement this week; I would announce again that I've giving
the circus comes to town
Hello, worldbuilders! This is your weekly newsthingy... and we're gonna start with An Actual Announcement.
Talk and workshop: The Conference, Malmö, Mon 26th August 2024
I will be giving a talk entitled Wisdom for worldbuilders: fictions, futures, fandoms on the morning of Mon 26th August.
Said talk is
null but not void
Hello, worldbuilders! What's been happening at Worldbuilding Agency this week?
No essay or interview
Um, yeah—bit of an absence at the middle of the week, wasn't there? Sorry about that.
There's an interview in the pipe, but it's awaiting approval from