Tag: fiction

Hum

Call the entire industry adversarial tech.

I’ve read almost only nonfiction in recent years. I’ve been quick to drop fiction so much that I don’t try as much — though I’m sure I’ll get back to it at another stage in my life. Yet some fiction does slip in, and so when I stick to it, I know I love it. Such it was with Hum, the near-future science fiction novel by Helen Phillips that uses a world in which newly ubiquitous AI robots dominate modern life to dissect marriage and parenting. It published just back in August.

Says the protagonist mother, who had just lost her job to an AI that she programmed, in reference to her kids: “Whenever she saw beauty, her only thought was that she wanted them to see it.”

Or another line that hit me, a young parent: “Their time here was brief, yes, slipping through their fingers: but it occurred to her that everyday was not twenty-four hours, it was actually ninety-six, each of the four of them living their own twenty-four hours side by side “

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Initially set in 1992, later editions of the science fiction classic “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” updated the setting to 2021. And so, we have now lived through Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel.

Perhaps best known as inspiring the 1982 Harrison Ford movie Bladerunner, the novel won mixed reviews at launch but has developed a cult following. Dick (1928-1982) is not remembered as a great writer as much as a great thinker (Minority Report and Total Recall also inspired by his stories), and that’s felt truer still after a new wave of artificial intelligence hype.

The title plays off a subplot of the book in which the humans who remain on earth (after nuclear fallout) covet the status symbol of a living animal, as opposed to artificial ones. So, the question is whether androids (the increasingly human-passing machines that the main character is chasing) would dream of electric ones? Its big theme: What defines humanity, especially if machines increasingly recreate many of the skills we identify with? I enjoyed the book, and below share notes for my own future reference.

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Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah’s 1994 novel “Paradise”

In summer 2005, I took classes at the University of Ghana in Accra — in between pickup basketball games and nervously navigating the jitney-style “tro tro” bus system.

Among my self-discoveries that summer was an appreciation for the African aesthetic. I complemented my coursework on the oral histories of Sundiata and the short-lived political writing of Kwame Nkrumah with wood-carving, food culture, drumming, and storytelling. I read and re-read passages from a worn copy of “Th” under a baobab tree, and excitedly emailed a childhood friend from an Internet cafe to tell him that his New England university was home to Chinua Achebe, whose classic 1958 novel “Things Fall Apart” reinvigorated my dream to be a writer.

What clicked for me that summer was that so much of this art and culture I was exploring wasn’t an answer to the dominant themes of my western world. They stood on their own. They didn’t need the West to be complete but rather I needed them to be a little closer to complete myself. In this way, I felt it all nourishing.

One of the novels I added to a list then that I only now got to was “Paradise,” the 1994 Nobel Prize-winning historical fiction written by Abdulrazak Gurnah.

Continue reading Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah’s 1994 novel “Paradise”

Lessons on writing from four Russian masters (and George Saunders)

We live our life letting only some instruments in the orchestra play, so when we write fiction we can explore the rest. To create great fiction, we must emphatically pursue our “radical preference,” and remove everything else

Few do it as well as the greats from a 75-year period of Russian masters. So argues George Saunders, today’s most celebrated American fiction writer and a well-regarded writing professor, in his 2021 book: “A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life.”

He shares stories from four greats and intersperses his notes, based on a course he teaches. It’s approachable and generous. Below I share my notes for future reference.

Continue reading Lessons on writing from four Russian masters (and George Saunders)

Inciting Joy

Late in his fall 2022 book Inciting Joy, essayist and poet Ross Gay confronts criticism he’s received for the writing he’s done on Joy. Most of it amounts to, the author says: how can a black man write about flowers in a time like this?

Earlier on, he gives his answer: Sorrow doesn’t need any help; “I think sorrow’s gonna be just fine.”

It’s an energizing and beautiful collection. I strongly recommend it. I share my notes for future reference below.

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“The Fifth Season” by NK Jemisin

I finally read the acclaimed 2015 science fiction book The Fifth Season, which kicks off the Broken Earth trilogy by NK Jemisin. It was beautiful and enthralling. Lots challenged our relationship to our world and those who are different, and many lines were memorable but two stuck with me as representing those two points:

“Neither myths nor mysteries can hold a candle to the most infinitesimal spark of hope.”

As a character thinks while on a long, desperate march: “There are boring parts, like…when the fields give away to stretches of dim forest so quiet and close that Damaya hardly dares speak for fear of angering the trees.”

What a treasure.

Here’s the reading list from my resolution to only read books from women and writers of color

One of my resolutions last year was to only read books by women and writers of color for a year. My goal was to both read more and to push myself outside of authors who look like me.

I fell out of the habit, so rather than clear a book a month, this lingered for 18 months, but the last 12 books I’ve read fulfilled the goal. This has resulted in a couple lasting points for me: a recognition of authors from underrepresented backgrounds and a new reading habit of more smartly using my library card (thanks for the process, SACMW!)

Below find my reading list.

Continue reading Here’s the reading list from my resolution to only read books from women and writers of color

Read my piece in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

One of the challenges I gave myself this year was to sharpen my humor writing. Though I like to think of myself of something resembling funny in person — would you like to hear a knock knock joke? — this is not a quality that I have developed in my writing.

So with that in mind, I took on several causes in fiction writing recently. I’m proud to say that that resulted in a small, playful item of mine being published by the Internet Tendency, the online satire site of well-known publisher McSweeney’s. I summoned my own entrepreneurship experience and coverage of other founders and startup culture: “REALLY, EVERYTHING IS GOING GREAT AT MY TECH STARTUP. I JUST HAVE SOME PAYROLL QUESTIONS.”

Read it here.

It was fun to see people I know share the piece without knowing I wrote it, in addition to McSweeney fans (and I am one) enjoying it too. It was a new experience writing for a publication I know well. I hope you enjoy.

National Novel Writers Month #NaNoWriMo advice

Writing and editing are two separate acts. The old joke goes that you ought to write drunk and edit sober for a reason. One is about discovery and the other is an exercise in concision.

One reason I like the idea of National Novel Writers Month, which takes place each November, is that it is a clear call for writers to write now, and edit later. Since 1999, thousands of writers have written 50,000 words of a novel draft — about 1,600 words daily. With a simple novel concept, I participated back in November.

Since then, I’ve had a few discussions with friends about the process. I thought I’d share those simple thoughts here.

Continue reading National Novel Writers Month #NaNoWriMo advice