Top 10 books about remaking the future | Peter F Hamilton | Books | The Guardian

Here then are 10 stories of remaking the future that contain hope — or at least stability.

  1. The City and the Stars by Arthur C Clarke
  2. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North
  3. Revenger by Alastair Reynolds
  4. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
  5. Do You Dream of Terra-Two? by Temi Oh
  6. Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks
  7. Natural History by Justina Robson
  8. Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
  9. Way Station by Clifford D Simak
  10. News from Gardenia by Robert Llewellyn

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Imagining a Future with Surgically Inserted Earbuds and Whale Concerts – Rolling Stone

Annalee Newitz:

When we imagine future tech, we usually focus on the ways it could turn humans into robotic workers, easily manipulated by surveillance capitalism. And that’s not untrue. But in this story, I wanted to suggest that there is a more subversive possibility. Modifying our bodies with technology could bring us closer to the natural world.

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What The Last of Us, Snowpiercer and ‘climate fiction’ get wrong - BBC Culture

I not only worry that “cli-fi” might not be an effective form of environmental expression – I have come to believe that the genre might be actively dangerous, stunting our cultural ability to imagine a future worth living in or fighting for.

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“Dune,” “Foundation,” and the Allure of Science Fiction that Thinks Long-Term — Blog of the Long Now

Comparing and contrasting two different takes on long-term thinking in sci-fi: Dune and Foundation.

In a moment of broader cultural gloominess, Dune’s perspective may resonate more with the current movie-going public. Its themes of long-term ecological destruction, terraforming, and the specter of religious extremism seem in many ways ripped out of the headlines, while Asimov’s technocratic belief in scholarly wisdom as a shining light may be less in vogue. Ultimately, though, the core appeal of these works is not in how each matches with the fashion of today, but in how they look forward through thousands of years of human futures, keeping our imagination of long-term thinking alive.

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Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors | Fix

Twelve short stories of solarpunk cli-fi “envisioning the next 180 years of equitable climate progress.”

Whether built on abundance or adaptation, reform or a new understanding of survival, these stories provide flickers of hope, even joy, and serve as a springboard for exploring how fiction can help create a better reality.

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A Century of Science Fiction That Changed How We Think About the Environment | The MIT Press Reader

From Mary Shelley and Edgar Rice Burroughs to John Brunner, Frank Herbert and J.G. Ballard to Kim Stanley Robinson, Paolo Bacigalupi, and Octavia Butler.

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Brian Aldiss

1925 - 2017

August in America, day eight

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Atlanta, Georgia; Tucson, Arizona.

Myth and magic

I’ve been reading modern retellings of Greek myths with varying degrees of supernatural intervention.

Books I read in 2024

Mostly fiction.

Talking about sci-fi

I’ve published the transcript of my sci-fi talk.