No. 43 — Planetary fiction 🗺️ Robin Wall Kimmerer + Björk 🍄 Unix Pipe Cards
They were worldsick
My name is Linda. I write a bi-weekly newsletter about computer science, childhood and culture - and there are 9 720 of you listening. If you enjoy this issue, please share it with anyone you think may find it useful.
I just finished a new book by Ray Nayler called The Mountain in the Sea. It was everything a book of fiction should be - expansive, aching, entertaining, a full world to explore.
Most joyfully, the book is a return to the themes I was thinking about in early September. It uses the power of a story to explore similar ideas that James Bridle and Ed Young explain in their non-fiction work.
On the surface the book is a near-future story about humans discovering intelligence in an octopus species, and a following “high-stakes thriller to dominate the future”. But deeper, it’s a story about what it is like to live in a world of multiple intelligences. How are the minds of cephalopods, AI systems, corporations, androids and humans different? How can we explore biosemiotics through octopus writing? Oh, and the book has its own bibliography.
Soft science fiction, solar/hopepunk, climate fiction, planetary fiction - whatever you want to call this genre of books I’m always happy to come across non-dystopian fiction about the world. Here are four recommendations, which should also work for people who don’t usually see themselves as readers of science fiction:
This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladston. A poetic, exchange of letters across time. “Books are letters in bottles, cast into the waves of time, from one person trying to save the world to another.”
Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. The central story is around a ministry in Zurich - but I love how the book is built from many, diverse voices, truly of planetary scale. “What I’ve been doing in my climate fiction is try to point out the ramifications that aren’t fully taken on by the culture that are really important to think about. And that’s been a way to sort out which story I want to tell. Climate change is a global story. It will last for centuries. It will affect everyone. So which story do you tell of all those literally billions of stories for billions of people? I’ve been trying to pick the stories that aren’t yet on the radar.”
Exhalation by Ted Chiang. I’ve recommended this book so many times, lovely, glimmering stories. “Some humans theorize that intelligent species go extinct before they can expand into outer space. If they're correct, then the hush of the night sky is the silence of the graveyard.”
Embassytown by China Miéville. Especially for those interested in language, metaphors and heartbreak. “They were worldsick, as meanings yawed. Anything was anything, now. Their minds were sudden merchants: metaphor, like money, equalized the incommensurable. They could be mythologers now: they’d never had monsters, but now the world was all chimeras, each metaphor a splicing.”
Let me know if you have other recommendations in this loose genre of writing - or even better, a name for it?
Linked List
In computer science, a linked list is a linear collection of data elements whose order is not given by their physical placement in memory. But here it is a selection of things I’ve been reading lately.
Björk and Robin Wall Kimmerer together, for almost an hour. What could be better? “Oh, and I think we’re probably cut from the same cloth, in terms of, you know, being— I, anyway, am a committed introvert, so this will be nice just to have a intimate conversation to begin.”
The Unix Pipe Card Game. Some of you will love this. I’ve been often thinking about dominos and code syntax as a place where play could happen.
Femicom Museum. “Preserved, celebrated, remixed, and reimagined the history of femme electronic games and toys.” Browsing through the images was a nostalgia trip.
Classroom
I’m hoping to surface and share stories from all of you and I’d love to see your creations! Here are a few teachers using Ruby in creative, fun and inspiring ways.
My Turkish publisher is looking for a classroom to connect with one of their partners for a joint project (preferably in EU). Send me a note, if interested! (And check out their work on Instagram)
Codeweek is upon us soon - my Czech publishers has put together some wonderful resources!
And here’s a joyful group picture from an educator training in Madrid, focusing especially on the math related activities around Hello Ruby.
Your newsletter makes me so happy. Thank you for writing/sharing!