Morning fellow Frivolous!
I'm wondering about the graveyard of ideas and technologies that exist today and will exist in the future. Not all ideas and bright-eyed efforts pan out, and even when some do, the organizations don't last or the idea is abandoned for a different one. As we weave technology into our lives ever more tightly, our ability to overcome and survive fundamental changes to the operators of that technology becomes increasingly important. One of our stories hits squarely on this, and it bears thinking about human-critical infrastructure.
In other news, it's March! And we'll be releasing the first of Frivolous Comma's Author Interview Series this Friday, and then every. other. Friday till the heat-death of the universe. So mark your calendars, create reminders, and spread the word!
Winner of the Future Worlds Prize 2021
ICYMI — Massive congratulations to @MHAyinde for winning the #FutureWorldsPrize2021 and to Salma Ibrahim for coming runner-up! So many brilliant stories were in the running, it was a delight to read such remarkable work 🏆🎆🏆 https://t.co/ZY5iGlFOT2
— Gollancz (@gollancz) February 21, 2022
Future Worlds Prize is a UK based organization that celebrates unpublished sci-fi and fantasy writers of color, and I came across them during one of my author interviews.
About M.H. Ayinde's winning story "A Shadow in Chains" (yet to be published): In the Nine Lands, only those of noble blood can summon their ancestors to fight in battle. But when a commoner from the slums accidentally invokes a powerful spirit, she finds it could hold the key to ending a centuries-long war.
Tomorrow's Parties, edited by Jonathan Strahan, via MIT Press
I'm generally a fan of anything by Strahan and hugely enjoy listening to he and Gary Wolfe...just chat...on their Coode Street Podcast. This collection centers around tightly focused narratives in a post climate-change world, with an anti-despair bend. There's been a lot of cli-fi out there, much of it as a warning, which makes this collection different and attractive.
Working but discarded
This is a sobering article from IEEE about Second Sight, the company that created a bionic eye for patients with blindness. The company, now merging with another, discontinued its product, leaving several patients with no support. What do we do with technology that works, but the operators and the infrastructure behind it fails?
~Illustration by Sarah Hofheins