Sci Fi News & roundup!

First a few items about my own works. In about a month, two of my books - Earth and Glory Season - will be re-released by Open Road Media - with gorgeous new covers, in both trade paperback and ebook versions.  Pre-order now?

Here, Mark Rayner's lovely review of my novel Earth is very flattering. 

For any of you completists out there: my first novel – Sundiver - is the only one that never had a hardcover. Now one is coming… and what an edition!  Alex Berman's Phantasia Press will release “Numbered editions which will feature a full color wrap around dustjacket, frontispiece, and interior art by Jim Burns. 

Each copy will be printed in two colors throughout, on high quality acid free Smythe sewn paper with full color endsheets.” Phantasia previously released signed limited editions of the second and third books in the series (Startide Rising in 1983 and The Uplift War in 1987).  Expected release date early 2024.

This edition includes my 2020 foreword and a terrific Robert J. Sawyer introduction specifically for this release.

Do you know YA? I am looking for a new publisher for my series of short novels for teens, featuring some of today's brightest new authors, in a consistent future setting for adventures through interstellar space and time!  The "Out of Time" (or "Yanked!") series: Only teens can teleport through time and space! Dollops of fun, adventure and something so rare, nowadays... optimism for young adults. If you think of a publisher who might be compatible, speak up in comments!

Finally, are you a fan of live theater? We were in Pasadena at our alma mater - Caltech - to attend a one-night production of my play, "The Escape: A Confrontation in Four Scenes," presented by the Caltech Playreaders. The directing/acting/performances were beyond my best hopes! You can watch the production on Youtube.

== Sci Fi Roundup! ==

Almost the entire catalogue of sci fi legend Norman Spinrad is available (cheap) online. If you don’t read it… coming generations of AI surely will!

Thomas Easton and Frank Wu have a future-tech spy series going. ESPionage: Regime Change: A Psychic CIA novel. When the Russians start an undeclared war to bring down the West with assassinations and disinformation attacks, the CIA reactivates a psychic agent from its old Project Stargate to fight off the attacks.  See Paul DiFilippo’s rave review!

Eliot Peper's latest novel Foundry is a near-future thriller featuring (among many things) two spies locked in a room with a gun, leveraging the secrets of semiconductor manufacturing to play the greatest of games, the only game that really matters: power.

 

Just finished reading a YA novel by Gideon Marcus… Kitra. A lovely, lively adventure tale of five teens – one of them a blobby alien – getting into and out of trouble when they buy a used spaceship. Fast paced and Gideon has got the skills. Hook your own teen on the series!

Amid headlines covering the demise of JFK on November 22, 1963, I long knew that an obit on the back pages told of the same-day passing of Aldous Huxley, supposedly during an acid trip (I hear) in the arms of a lady guru. (I’d rather blithely believe that hearsay than look it up.) What I never realized was that C.S. Lewis ALSo died the same day!  This book - Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog beyond death with John F. Kennedy, C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley - imagines JFK, CSL and Aldous meeting in the Bardo just after death. One of them on a lingering acid trip, one shouting "Wait, I was so young and powerful!" and Lewis shocked to find himself in a buddhist waiting room.

Calling nerdy SF + NASA junkies...

As I retire from 12 years on the advisory council of NASA’s Innovative & Advanced Concepts program – (NIAC) – some high NASA officials have asked if any great science fiction was ever inspired by NIAC studies. In addition to my own, I know of as few more. Especially, Doug Van Belle’s A World Adrift - set in the skies of Venus, some 800 years after they were first colonized - incorporates elements from several NIAC studies, including Stoica (2015), Bugga (2016), and Balcerski (2018), with work by space scientist and Nebula winner Geoff Landis (2019) figuring prominently as an essential element of the plot.

==SF & Hollywood ==

Writing this on Star Trek Day!  Count me in with this wave of love for Trek! I do adore it for some unusual reasons, though. Example, the ship in Trek is a vast naval vessel charged with diplomacy, science, exploration and only occasionally fighting... and the captain is no super-force demigod (the core conceit of Star Wars) but merely a way-above-average person, who needs help every time, from above average crewmates. And the Federation is aboard, a topic almost every episode. It's faults and blessings and rules and codes and dreams and possibilities. (See my essay, To Boldly Go.)

(Shoot!  Shoot the Federations starship!" screeched that nasty oven mitt, Yoda, in one of the prequels. Seriously, Lucas? Are you at all the same person who created the wonderfull YIJC?)

In contrast, the ship in Star Wars is a WWI fighter plane (banking against nonexistent air) with the silkscarf lone hero-pilot and his gunner-droid... the knight and squire going back to Achilles & Patroclus. Wars is all about demigods, demigods. Demigods all the way down. Normal folk can only choose which set of feuding gods to die for. And the poor, hapless Galactic Republic has no place on such a ship. Hence it is never really a topic. The Starwarsian Galactic Republic does nothing. Ever. At all. Name an exception. The lesson is the same as in all works by Orson Scott Card: "Hold out no hope for a decent civilization. Throw yourself at the feet of a demigod and pray he'll be a nice one, like Ender!"

All of this and more is in Vivid Tomorrows: Science Fiction and Hollywood. 

Oh. Also. In this podcast, a brilliant Stanford biologist cites his influences, including science fiction authors. (Especially about 9 minutes in.)

And here's an bit for those who saw and loved (I did, with minor quibbles) the recent Oppenheimer film: a CBS 1965 interview with Oppenheimer. Twenty years after Trinity. Twenty years before Gorbachev.

== Science meets art! ==

If you are interested (as I am) in the intersections of science and art, then this might be a good listen for 20 minutes during your commute: an interview with half a dozen artists and musicians who collaborate closely with scientists. Fun and inspiring! There are also links to other discussions about the societal impact of science fiction. 

 

Of course, having spent my entire post-puberty life in both realms, I have my own take on science overlaps – and conflicts – with art. Or more generally, the tense but often productive interplay between pragmatic-enlightenment methods, on the one hand, and the deeper-rooted human drive for romanticism. 

As I describe in another program – and in Vivid Tomorrows – we would live far poorer, even soulless lives, without the mighty talent of creative imagination. Though we have – at long last – also come to realize how dangerous – even devastatingly deadly – imagination can become, when it seizes control of politics and policy. A failure mode that made the last 6000 years a living hell for 99.99% of our ancestors, until the last few generations began emerging from that world of delusion and ghosts and ‘magic.’

I do what most of those interviewed do - craft art that can collaborate with... or challenge... or project possible outcomes of... a scientific civilization that's dedicated to the kind of progress that only comes from lively, good-natured rivalry among the widest diversity of free minds.  In other words, the diametric opposite to those 6000 dark years.

Obeying unsapient reflexes, many members of a world oligarchy think they can make things much bettwer if they restore those 6000 years of brutal feudalism. Ingrate traitors to the one, unique civilization that gave them everything.

And finally....

North Korean science fiction? In The strange, secretive world of North Korean science fiction, A. Fiscutean reports that “Late dictator Kim Jong-il referenced science fiction books in his speeches and set guidelines for authors, encouraging them to write about optimistic futures for their country.” Of course, the father of the current dictator also had a fetish for moviemaking and (apparently) even arranged for some film creators to be kidnapped and brought to Pyongyang.  Further, “Stories often touch on topics like space travel, benevolent robots, disease-curing nanobots, and deep-sea exploration. They lack aliens and beings with superpowers. Instead, the real superheroes are the exceptional North Korean scientists and technologists who carry the weight of the world on their shoulders.”

Phew, no wonder Donald Trump 'fell in love' with Kim the younger! We must be under an alien Stoopidizer ray, that such 'leaders' are even possible.

Oh, an addendum... on travel to Panama!

Come on by comments if you have suggestions for our trip (to the Beneficial AGI Summit)...

Sci Fi News & roundup!

Topical note: Probably my fiction story most pertinent to today’s Artificial Intelligence ‘crisis’ - "Stones of Significance" - responded to a challenge: Is it possible to write a tale that is set after the Singularity?  A positive singularity, when humans have effectively become gods? 

Well, the creation of vastly superior new minds could have one of two consequences. Either organic humanity will be left in the dust ... or else we’ll find some way to go along with the ride!  How might we accomplish that? By the same brain layering effect that got us the prodigious skull-puters we already have! Adding layers upon layers. The story is available in my anthology Best of Brin.

An aside from reality, not SF: Some of this also made it into my WIRED article - Give Every AI a Soul or Else - (July'23) that dissects the three standard 'AI-format' assumptions that are clutched by the geniuses now unleashing their 'gollms' (Generative Large Language Models) upon the world. These clichéd assumptions - that nearly all of them take for granted - are three totally familiar formats - familiar because they have long been seen in both sci fi and dismal human history... three formats that can only lead to disaster!

I'm suggesting instead a fourth; That AI entities can only be held accountable if they have individuality... even 'soul'...  (The WIRED piece was condensed-down from a much larger, more detailed inquest into today's AI landscape: I'm looking for a venue willing to explore it in 7000 words! See also my related NEWSWEEK op-ed (June'22) that dealt with 'empathy bots'' that pass Turing Tests and feign sapience and personhood. A prediction six years ago that came true, to the month.)  

== More great Science Fiction News! ==

I highly recommend Inner Space and Outer Thoughts: Speculative Fiction From JPL Authors. "Fact ignites fiction in this first-of-its-kind anthology of speculative tales by Caltech and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) scientists, engineers, technologists, and students. Experts at the frontiers of their fields, along with renowned Caltech alumni such as David Brin, S. B. Divya, and Larry Niven, present accessible and nerdy science fiction stories informed by their experience at Caltech or JPL."  And yes, I have read them all, amazed that so many great stories flowed from so many busy techies.

Have collectable hardcovers you want to protect with slipcase boxes? Here’s your best source!  Everything About Books! They accommodate both ready-to-order and special-custom requests. Plus other services for the truly devoted bibliophile. See these fine examples the company made for us! Browse their website with loads of examples.

Here's the list of authors in this season's cast for About The Authors TV: Andy Weir, Malka Older, Kim Stanley Robinson, Nisi Shawl, Daniel Jose Older, Martha Wells, Jonathan Strahan, Fonda Lee, Steven Barnes, Tananarive Due, Larry Niven, Walter Jon Williams, Dean Koontz, David Brin, Daniel Abraham, Lauren Beukes, Nancy Holder, Christopher Paolini, Sherillyn Kenyon, Scott Sigler, Kevin J. Anderson, David Weber, James Morrow, Carrie Vaughn, Charles Gannon, John Shirley, Robert J. Sawyer, R.A. Salvatore, Terry Brooks, and Joyce Carol Oates!

Nice fan art. Nathan Goldwag created a world map showing a desperate fictional struggle between the remnants of civilized humanity and a burgeoning Nazi empire, aided by “revived Aesir” or Norse ‘gods’ manufactured by necromancy… all from my Hugo runner-up novella “Thor Meets Captain America” , from The River of Time. Alas, things get even worse for the world as that novella segues into the full (and gorgeous) graphic novel The Life Eaters. Watch the vivid trailer!  See Nathan's extensive collections of other - Maps of the Multiverse.

Aside: Does that apocalyptic tale disprove the canard that I am an optimist? Since heroes (like you?) arise to fight against evil. (And note this was all before Marvel decided to revive Thor... and the Captain... and especially the obscure/forgotten “Ironman.”)

What's my optimistic take? That citizens like you can rise up. Fight for how we differ from 6000 years of wretched tyranny!  The question is whether or not you will.

== Sci Fi Roundup ==

A high school kidnapped by aliens! Novus Mundi Press has just republished my Sky Horizon YA series: Colony High and Castaways of New Mojave (written with Jeff Carlson). Aliens kidnap a California high school! And volume three has just been handed in! Diaspora Disaster co-written with Dr. Steve Ruskin.

The Hugo Nominees for Best SFF Novel of 2023 include: The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, The Kaiju Preservation Society, by John Scalzi, Legends & Lattes, by Travis Baldree, Nona the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir, Nettle & Bone, by T. Kingfisher, and The Spare Man, by Mary Robinette Kowal. Winners to be announced at the Chengdu Worldcon.

And yes, the nominees list is a better reader's guide than the mere winners!

Just released: Epically popular authors Peter Cawdron (The Art of War) and Eliot Peper (Foundry) each have terrific new novels out.

And here's a blast through science fiction classics - with a fun web page running through Twenty-five great tropes in science fiction.

John Yarrow’s time travel novel - Future's Dark Past. With humanity on the brink of extinction, futuristic time travelers go back in history to change the dark past, but time is running out for them in more ways than one. 

Here’s a lovely little amateur recitation-story (no actual character or dialogue) about human destiny in case we are fated to be the First Race of starfarers… a possibility that I also explore both in my (Hugo winning) short story “The Crystal Spheres” and in my sci fi comedy novel The Ancient Ones. 

Watch a cool Graphic Novel trailer about a noir future: eJunky is “a twisted noir thrill-ride into a ‘Blade Runner’ meets ‘The Matrix’ in ‘Brazil’ fantasy world. Lust, power and existential dread layer Tana’s terrifying dreamscape where your own memory can’t be trusted.” 

Hugo finalist Gideon Marcus has a way-fun SF Young adult series... hard SF...that begins with the adventures of KITRA!

My colleague Bruce Golden has released his new novel The Omega Legacy, which speculates on what kind of civilization artificial intelligences might create, should humanity be driven to extinction.

I tell my writing students: “Start with a murder mystery!” John G. Bluck did in his novel, Murder at NASA: “By 2030 the investigation into the brutal murder of a NASA Space Plane Test Manager has grown cold, so the FBI assigns Agent Rita Reynolds with the impossible—find a lead.”

This volume - Jewish Futures: Science Fiction from the World's Oldest Diaspora —the literary heir to the Wandering Stars anthologies of the 1970s and ’80s (and leading off with a very personal essay by Jack Dann, who edited those books)—extrapolates Jews and Judaism into a wide future. Sometimes moody, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny.

== Media rants ==

Some years ago, Jill Tarter, Brian Keating & I panel-discussed a showing of the 1997 film Contact and Jodi Foster's portrayal of Jill, at UCSD's Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination. Searching for actual alien life, not elusive-dumb-UFO space elves. Here's a recording of the event.

A faux documentary about the Martian invasion of Victorian Europe using black and white photos and film along with "interviews" with old veterans and military "historians". World War I trench warfare, biplanes etc. vs. Martian tripods with heat rays. Cool?

Along similar lines... See also this way groovy collection I got to be part of, with the very same shared conceit...War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches, with accounts of the Wells's Martian War as told by other writers of the time, Conrad, Verne, Lovecraft, Freud.... as channeled by great writers of our own time.

And a reminder that you are NOT required to surrender your science fictionally bold sense of wonder to a dipply-silly and stunningly dumb UFO Cult. Here's my general dissection of the ever-recurring UFO mania... and the 10% of it that might be worth looking at.  Dig it, guys, no one alive has studied 'the alien' as a general concept more than I have across 6+ decades, from SETI to astrophysics and planetary science, to NASA... to... well, thought experiements in so many exploratory SF stories. And hence, my biggest complaint is that these UFO tales are so.... repetitively and illogically dull!

OTOH I totally agree with this article from Inverse: “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets Should Have Been the Future of Blockbusters.” The flick was terrific and left all superhero stuff in the dust. A dust of endlessly repeated tropes ("Collect all the magic dinguses!") and tiresomely-same Achilles-wannabe superheroes, that studios foist upon a public that doesn’t want to work hard, even in their sci fi. In Valerian, Luke Besson gave you a chance for something almost as much fun as The Fifth Element, but even more daring. 

Ah, well. Your loss.

== Finally, your duty as a sci fi fan... ==

... is to Pay It Forward! SF has been very good to you.  

It’s arguable that we are all here today, edging past potential disasters like nuclear war, because of dire, self-preventing prophecies of sci fi! An argument that I back up in Vivid Tomorrows: Science Fiction and Hollywood.  Indeed, SF conquered the world!  In the movies, TV and games that entertain billions, while preaching lessons of worry, danger and (occasionally) promise.

Alas, most of those games and shows are also pablums - at-best distilled essences - devoid of the subtlety, texture and complexity found in higher-end novels and stories! Sure, as a novelist I’m biased!  But if you subscribe to this community – and have read this far – then so are you! Biased – (the way AIs will be!) - in favor of actual reading. In a fast-changing future, won’t we need complexity, subtlety and multilayered thought? 

Beyond writing Vivid Tomorrows, I’ve pushed two projects. One is TASAT: There’s a Story About That, which could give future decision-makers access to 120 years of sci fi thought experiments that might be useful in a crisis. It’s been slow going – building a functioning web tool. Though at any point TASAT might save the world! (Volunteer programmers welcome! Speak up in comments.)

The other project can be pursued by any Sci Fi FAN community! A project that could help prevent True Fandom from dying out, like other failed cults. And (alas) I've been making this point for decades.

I have re-posted the “Killer Bees Letter” here on my other – less-used but more formal blog, on Word Press. Please if you care about literary SF fandom, give it a look.

We are the tribe that explores concepts for fun! Concepts like the vast array of nuanced dangers and opportunities that lie above, beyond… and just ahead.

SHARE THAT FORWARD!  And thus help to save the world.