seen from Russia
seen from South Korea
seen from Australia
seen from Iraq
seen from Yemen
seen from Vietnam
seen from Tunisia
seen from Canada
seen from Morocco
seen from Spain
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Italy
seen from Guatemala
seen from China
seen from Indonesia
seen from Netherlands
Going against the grain of alternate history stories by writing an indulgent counterfactual where Hitler, Goring, Goebbels, Himmler, etc. were all beaten to death by a socialist street gang in like 1920, WWII never happened, and by 1970 the world is a bountiful paradise and we’re colonizing Mars and Venus too.
Also in this timeline Roosevelt and Stalin were gay lovers and I will be offering no explanation as to why or how.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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Anathem
I just finished reading Anathem by Neal Stephenson, and it was hard. And I don't say this as a form of criticism, but as a satisfaction of overcoming a challenge. I don't believe I understood all the philosophical and scientific discussions - Dialog - throughout the reading; on the contrary, there were some things I gave up trying to understand in order to maintain my sanity and be able to move forward. This is a book that requires attention to detail, engagement and patience.
"People have a need to feel that they are part of some sustainable project. Something that will go on without them. It creates a feeling of stability. I believe that the need for that kind of stability is as basic and as desperate as some of the other, more obvious needs."
It's a thousand pages that mix alternative history, close encounters of the third kind, utopian fantasy of futuristic science fiction, multiple religions and philosophical treatise, all highly detailed and not at all obvious. But I'm happy to have finished this challenge and to have understood, at least in part, the Narrative.
Illustration by Patrick Arrasmith
“Nothing is more important than that you see and love the beauty that is right in front of you, or else you will have no defense against the ugliness that will hem you in and come at you in so many ways.”
Diagrams by Fraa Erasmas in Calca 1: Cutting the Cake
A book that combines levels of reality, space travel, monks, tiling, math nerds and a giant icosahedron in orbit.
Building a fantasy utopia
Do you ever think about how much fantasy fiction leans on queens and emperors and the power of royalty? And how even when it doesn't it tends to create alternative power structures that are also bad for the people living in them?
What would a fantasy utopia that tried to make life better for its citizens look like?
My answer is the setting for my first novel, The Redstone Rescue: The arid realm of Sataminva was once an empire, then a kingdom. Twenty years ago the king set out on a war of conquest and, to everyone's surprise, the enemy general not only won but executed the king and all of his army leadership instead of ransoming them back. In the capital the administrator left in charge of the day to day running of the country saw an opportunity and instead of seizing the throne decided to destroy it, starting a grand political experiment.
In the present Sataminva is governed at a national level by the Voices, a randomly chosen selection from the population supported by the Governmental Dead, a professional civil service declared legally dead when they take office. They're still feeling things out and everybody grumbles about it but life for ordinary people in Sataminva is far better than it ever has been.
Unfortunately the neighbouring kingdoms still believe that royal blood is magic and a realm without royalty is free real estate. Their initial forays failed due to Sataminvan cunning and audacity but they watch and wait. One of the things Sataminva does to protect itself is have the investigators of the Mirror Bureau seeking out potential trouble. It is two of these investigators who our story follows on a simple case that keeps growing more complex at every turn...
I am really proud of this book - the setting I'm describing here is kind of backgrounded to make for a fun and fast moving adventure story; I wanted it to be readable and entertaining and funny, something you can enjoy while the big ideas sit in the background.
You can find it here, and wherever you get your ebooks:
### A light-hearted utopian fantasy detective story “They say the crown lies heavy on the head of the king, but in Sataminva our crown lies
Gucci’s ‘Utopian Fantasy’ S/S 2018 campaign in collaboration with Ignasi Monreal
Gucci
Spring/Summer 2018
"Utopian Fantasy"
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Spanish artist Ignasi Monreal creates a surreal Utopian fantasy for Gucci Spring 2018 campaign
pssst buy links are here for print and here for ebook
(or, if u don’t want to support our amazon overlords, try b&n or kobo or smashwords)
While it won’t solve all the world’s ills – and ideas such as a rent cap and more social housing are necessary in places where housing is scarce – a basic income would work like venture capital for the people. We can’t afford not to do it – poverty is hugely expensive. The costs of child poverty in the US are estimated at $500bn (£410bn) each year, in terms of higher healthcare spending, less education and more crime. It’s an incredible waste of potential. It would cost just $175bn, a quarter of the country’s current military budget, to eradicate poverty. That should be our goal. The time for small thoughts and little nudges is past. The time has come for new, radical ideas. If this sounds utopian to you, then remember that every milestone of civilisation – the end of slavery, democracy, equal rights for men and women – was once a utopian fantasy too. Now, 500 years after Thomas More first wrote about basic income, we need to update our worldview. Poverty is not a lack of character. Poverty is a lack of cash.
Rutger Bregman, 'Utopian thinking: the easy way to eradicate poverty', The Guardian
