You can’t put the genie back in the bottle, no matter what you do. There were warnings about the harm mechanization can do to industries, but artists figured, oh, not us. We’re different. Our work encapsulates the soul of humanity, and therefore, we can’t be replaced! Most artists – in all fields – were absolutely silent when mechanization and computerization devastated blacksmiths, glassblowers, woodworkers, and so many others whose styles and skills were plundered by industrialization for the profit of large corporations. They were also silent when AIs were being crafted for other fields that were about to face the chopping block of computerization. Truck drivers and cashiers weren’t artists, what they did wasn’t like art, despite the absolute centrality of those jobs for human civilization to continue to exist. No one eats without truck drivers handling cargo and cashiers selling it to you, not until they are replaced by machines.
Tag Archives: science fiction
Creating alternate timelines is weird
Like, narratively weird. As a sci-fi writer, the thing that gets into my head is… where does the energy come from? A fair number of sci-fi stories – and this has been brought on by me (trying) to read William Gibson’s Agency – a future alternate timeline has a bit of a cottage industry of going back in time and messing stuff up to “see what happens.” It is established that these alternate timelines are physically real and distinct.
So, every time some hobbyist gets an inch, they can go and create – materially, physically create – an alternate timeline?
WHERE DOES THE ENERGY COME FROM?! How is all the free energy not the biggest point of all of this?!
Ahem. That is all.
Witches vs. Nazis Chapter 1
Like it says on the tin: chapter one of Witches vs. Nazis, which is my current project. It’s awesome. I’m awesome. The witches are the good guys. And, yeah, I’m saying that the Patriarchy is demonic. I’m comfortable with that!
Witches vs. Nazis
by Kit Bradley
All rights reserved 2018
Chapter One
I.
Christmas Eve in the National Socialist Empire of America: a great festival where the twisted cross rose above the altar of the Kristr. In Yton, one of the greatest cities of the NSEA, the Orville Wright Stadium was full of blond, blue-eyed, pale faces in the stands, while the Untermenschen fought for their amusement. There were thirty thousand packed into the stands with the white and red decorations of Christmastime everywhere. The lights were bright on the dome overhead, buried deep in the arco. Typically, most of the seats would be regular people – middle class, save for a few seats high up – but today it was all high-ranking Nazis with their families.
Dracula vs. Cthulhu: Vampires in Spaceships
When discussing Dracula vs. Cthulhu, people seem surprised when I say it’s science-fiction and then talk about spaceships and time travel. So I’ll say it, again! Dracula vs. Cthulhu is science-fiction horror! So, yeah, don’t be too surprised if it has spaceships and time travel.
This is part of the reason to do such a story, right? If I was going to write a story where Dracula was just another Gothic monster, who would care? But the je ne sais quoi is the “vs. Cthulhu.” And Cthulhu? He’s on the sci-fi end of Lovecraft’s works. Further, I process both Cthulhu and Dracula through the lens of my interpretations and preferences. I think Lovecraft was at his best when he was at his most science-fiction-y.
Continue reading Dracula vs. Cthulhu: Vampires in Spaceships
There’s nothing on Mars!
I
‘m watching the first season of The Expanse, and I enjoy it quite a bit – but it has a trope that has arisen in science-fiction that I want to talk about: Mars.
The exploration of Mars, in many near-future sci-fi stories, is a metaphor for the United States and the stories Americans tell about it: that Mars is a nation that will be freed from the hidebound traditions of Earth and create a new superpower of culture and technology.
The “Mars as the United States” metaphor is a tortured in two key ways. First, the history of the United States is not typical of colonization. Second, the conditions on Mars were not the same as in the North American English colonies.