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Category: These fragments I have shored against my ruins

Small pieces of fiction

Swapping SNEAKERS

Swapping SNEAKERS

I’ve said it before, but SNEAKERS told us more about the future than HACKERS did. https://t.co/C6LLXpCH84 — Madeline Ashby (@MadelineAshby) June 18, 2016 I have a deep and abiding love for Sneakers, Phil Alden Robinson’s film, penned in part by Lawrence Lasker, who also wrote War Games. Like that film it’s also a critique of how technology and power intersect. But instead of cute-but-scrawny Matthew Broderick, it has rumpled-but-sexy Robert Redford. I’m not saying that Sneakers is entirely responsible for…

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New fiction!

New fiction!

Due to a quirk of deadlines and contracts, I have four new pieces of fiction out this month. Here they are: “A Stopped Clock” in The Atlantic Council’s War Stories from the Future. This is about smart cities and the future of urban warfare, as narrated by a middle-aged street vendor in Korea with an unspoken crush on her co-worker. This story will also appear in Gardner Dozois’ Year’s Best 33, which is very flattering. “Be Seeing You” in Pwning…

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Deleted scenes from Avengers: Age of Ultron

Deleted scenes from Avengers: Age of Ultron

As I’m sure you know by now, the theatrical cut of Avengers: Age of Ultron is missing about 25 minutes of footage, and Joss Whedon’s director’s cut will have an alternate ending. Here, exclusively*, are some of those missing scenes in screenplay format.

I spent a week writing my first comic and it was awesome.

I spent a week writing my first comic and it was awesome.

The week spent writing the comic, that is. The comic might not be that great. It’s hard for me to tell. But I had a great time writing it. A while back, some people at Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination asked me to participate in the new phase of EVOKE, a transmedia experience produced by the WorldBank to teach young people about social innovation. EVOKE can take the form of a comic book, a web game,…

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Some Company Town links

Some Company Town links

For each book I write, there’s a separate tag in my Favourites file. (I’m old-fashioned, and don’t carry a mobile Favourites with me. Doing so reminds me of my time in academia, when every scrap of information had to be saved. It also gives me hives.) Here are a few from the Company Town tag: Apocalypse, New Jersey: A dispatch from America’s most desperate town 10 Failed Utopian Cities That Influenced the Future The Dark Side of the “Smart City”…

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The Kindle edition of vN is on sale!

The Kindle edition of vN is on sale!

Yes! For For a whopping $1.79, according to my Amazon. (American browsers might see $1.99.) If you have not read vN already (and I know there are a lot of you), this would be the perfect time to pick it up and give it a try. Or if you have a grandmother who you particularly loathe, sending her a copy might be a subtle way to start that special “get the fuck out of my life, you hateful old bitch,”…

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About my next novel, Company Town

About my next novel, Company Town

Recently, Angry Robot announced something I’ve known about for quite a while now: I’m writing a book called Company Town, set apart from the Machine Dynasty series. It’s about an escorts’ escort named Hwa, who takes a job bodyguarding the young heir to a family-run corporate energy empire, just as that empire colonizes Hwa’s hometown: a floating city of Slocum towers built around an oil rig 500 km northeast of St. John’s, Newfoundland. Taking the job means quitting her gig…

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New story, “Permacultures,” available now

New story, “Permacultures,” available now

Today sees the release of Cautions, Dreams, and Curiosities, another anthology from the Tomorrow Project at Intel Labs. I was asked to write a story pertaining to the White House Grand Challenges, and I focused on food security. I watched a lot of TED talks (Netflix helpfully organizes the subject headings, and there have been a lot on the subject of farming, food security, food science, genetic modification, and so on) and a lot of documentaries like Food, Inc. and…

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iD: something from the butcher’s block

iD: something from the butcher’s block

Over the last few days, Twitter has been all, well, a-twitter about diversity in science fiction. Most of that has to do with this piece in The Guardian, which begins thusly: Science fiction loves a good paradox. Here’s one for you: how can a genre that dreams up alien cultures and mythic races in such minute detail seemingly ignore the ethnic, religious, gender and sexual diversity right here on the home planet, here in the real world? In other words,…

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