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!
strategy
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 22 / 2026: fathers and sons
After the hourglass has been overturned, there is a period during which the sand must resettle itself before the flow of time can become regularised once again. We are living through just such a period.
week 19 / 2026: centres and edges
The openings of stories, and the titles we give them, have a huge effect on how they land with the audiences—but as always with stories, it’s an art rather than a science. Plus: in praise of living and working at the edges.
week 18 / 2026: truth and lore
Games and prose fiction are very different media, but worldbuilding works basically the same across both of them—which is why you can learn a lot about fiction for futures from the better sort of game dev. Plus: why does music in science fiction sound like it does?
week 16 / 2026: language and longing
It’s language all the way up and down, if you ask Alan Moore—which throws an interesting light on the rolling “post-literacy” debate, and on the tech elite’s increasingly open grasp for magic as something more (and less) than mere metaphor. Plus Bruce Sterling speculates on cybernetics...
week 15 / 2026: cynicism and credulity
As the months pass, the surprise is no longer that hype and outright fiction are made to pass for truth, but rather that everyone seemingly already knows, and has made some sort of peace with it—whether resigned or enthusiastic. But how much longer can cynicism and credulity prevail?