Bruce Sterling

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Anarchy In The U.P.?
Bruce Sterling And Jeff VanderMeer Offer 2 Lessons On How To Build A Science-Fictional City
Your Personality Is Being Rewritten On The Fly
Why Does Bruce Sterling Hate Web 2.0?
Death of (Another) Underappreciated Novelist
Step Inside Rudy Rucker's Crazy-Quilt Writing Salon
The Grimly Grim Hallmark Of Awfully Bad Writing

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goldfarb
10/25/09

In reply to Anarchy In The U.P.?
how does one go about organizing an "Anarchists" book fair? #sfanarchists
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EdificeComplex
10/25/09

In reply to Anarchy In The U.P.?
Having grown up in Michigan, the U.P. for me means the Upper Peninsula. So for a minute there I thought maybe the Canadians had finally invaded. #sfanarchists
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Chip Skylark of Space
10/26/09

@The Architect of Tartaros: Holding up your right hand, point to where you're from.

You know how that works, you've been doing it all your life. #sfanarchists
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EdificeComplex
10/26/09

@Chip Skylark of Space: Actually I was originally a Yooper (small town in the Eastern U.P.). But I went to school in Ann Arbor and have lived in that area for nearly as long as I lived in the U.P. So I'm not sure if I'm officially a Troll now or what. #sfanarchists
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Sean Keller
10/26/09

@The Architect of Tartaros: I lived in the U.P. for 10 years before escaping back below the bridge and I was thinking the same thing :) #sfanarchists
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Chip Skylark of Space
10/27/09

@Sean Keller: F or the Yoopers, here's the other hand. We drive from 'Sconsin across the UP to Alpena every summer- I love the UP, especially the last 90 minutes before the bridge, when you drive along the dunes and beaches of Lake Michigan. I loves my fudge, too. #sfanarchists
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YanaH
10/27/09

@Chip Skylark of Space: Oh, no, a fudgie! I used to live/work in the lower northern and while the tourists were welcome for their dollars, we were always glad to see the season end. :) #sfanarchists
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Chip Skylark of Space
10/28/09

@YanaH: Yeah, I could see why. By the way, I was wearing my Mac Bridge sweatshirt (bought in St. Ignace, in the joint with the crappy/dangerous tower) when I wrote my comment yesterday. I'd imagine that the area would be a lot nicer/quieter without the tourists and the burger wrappers. Of course, they're followed by the hunters, this time of year, and then the snow mobilers.. #sfanarchists
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Guang
10/25/09

In reply to Anarchy In The U.P.?
Is that list posted anyplace else? Blogspot is blocked here in China. #sfanarchists
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NerD: Blattella
10/25/09

@Guang:
Here's Common Action's recommended reading list distributed to attendees:
Zainab Amadahy: The Moons of Palmares
MT Anderson: Feed
Iain M. Banks: Consider Phlebas, The Player of Games, Use of Weapons
Octavia Butler: Parable of the Sower, Parable of the Talents
Samuel R. Delany: Triton
Cory Doctorow: Little Brother, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
L. Timmel Duchamp: Alanya to Alanya, Renegade, Tsunami, Blood in the
Fruit, Stretto
Eileen Gunn: Stable Strategies and Others
Nalo Hopkinson: Midnight Robber, So Long Been Dreaming (Ed.)
Ursula K. LeGuin: The Dispossessed, Always Coming Home, Four Ways to
Forgiveness
Saab Lofton: A.D.
Ken MacLeod: The Star Fraction, The Stone Canal, The Cassini Division
China Mieville: Iron Council, Un Lun Dun, Perdido Street Station
Alan Moore: V for Vendetta
Grant Morrison: The Invisibles
Pat Murphy: The City, Not Long After
Chris Newport: The White Bones of Truth
Marge Piercy: Woman on the Edge of Time, He She and It
Philip Pullman: The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass
Kim Stanley Robinson: Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars, Antarctica
Joanna Russ: The Female Man
Nisi Shawl: Filter House
Starhawk: The Fifth Sacred Thing
Charles Stross: Singularity Sky, Iron Sunrise
Michael Swanwick: The Iron Dragon's Daughter
Amy Thompson: The Color of Distance
Brian K. Vaughan: Y The Last Man
Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchelli: DMZ #sfanarchists
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Guang
10/26/09

@NerD: Blattella: thanks! #sfanarchists
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Anekanta - Go Play!
09/17/09

In reply to Bruce Sterling And Jeff VanderMeer Offer 2 Lessons On How To Build A Science-Fictional City
I was very close to picking up The City of Saints and Madmen last week. Maybe I should have.
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GuinevereLagman
09/17/09

In reply to Bruce Sterling And Jeff VanderMeer Offer 2 Lessons On How To Build A Science-Fictional City
just a comment from an urbanist: there's a difference between built environment and the society that inhibits it (although you can see it as combine function) - the social aspects are reflections of the built environment (and vice versa) but one should be careful to correlate them in a one-dimensional way. seeing either or both together as technology is a singular viewpoint; it's an engineer's viewpoint. for others, cities are anything from artifact to, well, text, and can be "read" in different ways. interesting to see that bruce uses the past tense in the sentence i'm referring to. in any case, one core idea of the city is proximity, and people will need that in the future too, even if it takes on other, new shapes. or they'll cease being people. my two cents. love the future metro series!
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Lightice
09/17/09

In reply to Bruce Sterling And Jeff VanderMeer Offer 2 Lessons On How To Build A Science-Fictional City
Well, Jeff VanderMeer knows what he's talking about. His Ambergris, the City of Saints and Madmen is one of the most fascinating cities I've seen in speculative fiction. It's at the same time infuriating and pleasant to know that he'll probably never reveal all its secrets.
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Ruthless, If you let me
09/17/09

In reply to Bruce Sterling And Jeff VanderMeer Offer 2 Lessons On How To Build A Science-Fictional City
I think that there is a lack of historical buildings in future city-scapes. So many old buildings gain that vaunted "historical" status that they can never be torn down/modified in exterior appearance.

I can't imagine a Coruscant type city-scape, that totally displaces these structures. A group of 10 citizens will stop it from happening.
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Edited by Ruthless, If you let me at 09/17/09 10:57 AM

Lightice
09/17/09

@Ruthless, If you let me: In the case of Coruscant it seems stranger that there are no *new* buildings. The Jedi Temple is apparently thousands of years old, yet its architecture doesn't seem significantly different from the rest of the city. The implication seems to be that now new buildings have been made in a millennia.
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icelight
09/17/09

@Ruthless, If you let me: Those sorts of cities really only appear after wars. Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, was essentially flattened by the Nazis. With no historical sites to work around, the city is almost surreal in the quantity of glass and modern architecture it contains. It's not that any one building is notably exceptional, although there are a few. Instead, the unremitting expanse of skyscrapers, plazas and modern art make walking through the city unlike any other I've been to.
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skeksis
09/17/09

@Ruthless, If you let me: Bradbury Building, Blade Runner is the first one that comes to mind. But I am having trouble thinking of other examples.
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Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
09/17/09

@Lightice: I think you're both right.
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braak
09/17/09

In reply to Bruce Sterling And Jeff VanderMeer Offer 2 Lessons On How To Build A Science-Fictional City
I think it's important to remember, too, how economic realities affect the organization of a city--the banks are here because they want to be near the marketplace which is here, which is where it is for god only knows what reason, probably because it was the flattest part of the are six hundred years ago, and it's where all the cows stopped to graze.
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redqueenmeg
09/17/09

@braak: and this road is in this dippy place because the dippy cows decided this was the shortest way to water, even though it wasn't... heh.
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braak
09/17/09

@redqueenmeg: Yeah, cows don't like hills, so they'll go ten miles out of their way if it means not having to have to walk up.

Which explains the entire layout of Boston.
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