Spoilers Follow. Spoilers for the movie “Annihilation”. (The following review might also go down easier if you’ve read the book.) I’ve always been amazed that Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy became a massive best-seller. Truth is, I’m kind of amazed it even made it past the small presses. Don’t take this as a criticism of […]
Arc Weld
Category: biology, neuro“Language is a virus from outer space” —William S. Borroughs Chest-thump to start off the year: Last year’s “ZeroS”, appearing in Jonathan Strahan’s Infinity Wars, made it into a couple of (late-breaking update: into three!) Year’s Best collections: Neil Clarke’s Best Science Fiction of the Year (Vol. 3), and another couple I hesitate to name […]
A Christmas Carnivore.
Category: art on inkI thought I’d give you graphics for Christmas. Pieces of fan art have been accumulating over the year, and— while a lot of it is truly impressive— I feel weird using a blog post to do nothing but highlight one piece of art. Seems too easy, somehow. Blogs should be more— substantive. And then you […]
Denying Dystopia: The Hope Police in Fact and Fiction
Category: climate, eco, In praise of biocideI recently read Terri Favro’s upcoming book on the history and future of robotics, sent to me by a publisher hungry for blurbs. It’s a fun read— I had no trouble obliging them— but I couldn’t avoid an almost oppressive sense of— well, of optimism hanging over the whole thing. Favro states outright, for example, […]
After Party
Category: interviews, public interfaceYou know I was worried about this. A symposium thrown together with only four weeks’ notice? A general-audience section that starts in the middle of a work day? A Saturday— the time when a general audience might be most inclined to show up— given over to dry dusty academic talks with “paratextual” in their titles? […]
Kevin II: The ReKevining (or, The Cat Came Back).
Category: miscActually, the cat never left. It was Kevin who came back, drawn by a cat he could not live without, a cat who lived alone with him on the surface of the sun, a cat who, he sometimes insisted, was the only real being in the universe apart from himself. We know this because he […]
The Bicentennial 21st-Century Symposium of All About Me.
Category: public interfaceThis feels a bit weird. Creepy, even. If it makes any difference, I advised them not to go ahead with it. A couple of weeks from now— Nov 10-11— the University of Toronto will be hosting an academic symposium about me. More precisely, about my writing. You could even call it an international event. […]
My Dinner with Ramez: or, The Identity Landscape.
Category: neuro, sentience/cognitionA week or two ago— just before all the stuff with Kevin went down— I hung out with Ramez Naam for an evening. (If you know who I am you certainly know who he is; his Nexus trilogy burned across the charts in a way I can only dream of.) We snarfed. We drank. We […]
We Need to Talk About Kevin.
Category: miscOh fuck, I think. I’m gonna get arrested again. There’s a growing cluster of uniforms in the ravine abutting our property: city employees, police, a couple of guys wearing insignia I don’t recognize. Two cops poke at the tent in the ravine just across the fence from our tool shed. Their cars are pulled up […]
Pearls Before Cows: Thoughts on Blade Runner 2049
Category: ink on artLers of Spoi. You Have Been Warned. I’ve been dreading this film ever since I heard it was in the works. I’ve been looking forward to it ever since I saw Arrival. Now that I’ve seen it, well, I’m… Vaguely, I don’t know. Dissatisfied? Not that Blade Runner 2049 is a bad movie […]