We have always allowed our imaginations to create other worlds as expressions of our wildest dreams, hopes and fears. The story and present state of our speculations are explored by Erik Davis, China Miéville, Adam Roberts and Tricia Sullivan. Chair, Sam Leith.
Out of this World: Why science fiction speaks to us all
Also huffduffed as…
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Out of this World: Why science fiction speaks to us all
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Out of this World - Out of this World: Why science fiction speaks to us all
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Out of this World: Why science fiction speaks to us all
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Out of this World: Why science fiction speaks to us all
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Out of this World: Why science fiction speaks to us all
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Out of this World: Why science fiction speaks to us all
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Out of this World: Why science fiction speaks to us all
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LQ Podcast 31: China Miéville
China Miéville speaks with LQ editor Aidan Flax-Clark about craft, genre fiction, and the power of the supernatural over his books.
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Guardian Books podcast: The future — dystopia or utopia?
Will our future be happy? Will we control our technology or will it control us? Writers Nick Harkaway and Simon Ings warn that we should not accept everything on offer. Ben Marcus’s new dystopian novel imagines what might happen if it all goes wrong.
We’re in an age when technological fact is stranger than fiction – so why are so many novelists devoting themselves to exploring the frontiers of thought? Nick Harkaway explains why it’s the novelist’s job to imagine the future, and how "an act of taking the brakes off the imagination" could even help the world to make the right choices as we hurtle into the future. Simon Ings, editor of Arc, a new magazine devoted to imagining the future, explains the importance of speculative thinking and the sadness of the modern world.
And Ben Marcus talks about the worst case scenario of his new novel, The Flame Alphabet, which imagines a dystopian future where adults are poisoned by the speech of their children, and in which words and writing, and even making signs, also become fatal.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/audio/2012/jun/08/future-dystopia-utopia-books-podcast
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Ursula Le Guin at 80
Writer China Mieville talks to American science fiction writer Ursula Le Guin.
Le Guin was a trailblazer - writing in the 1960s, her series of books about the adventures of a boy wizard, Ged, included characters of every race and colour. Her fiction has been acutely concerned with politics, portraying worlds destroyed by environmental catastrophe that prefigured modern concerns about global warming, and societies without gender just as modern-day feminism began to take off.
Featuring contributions and tributes from Iain Banks and Margaret Atwood.