I have a few pieces to share. Still dealing with a kind of brain freeze (more on that in the Patreon), but the workflow is finally picking up.
Class in a few minutes, and then I can get back to your lovely replies, but for now -
Today for #OnlySky, the next instalment of Humanist Book Club. Our discussion of Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future explores the possibility of drilling polar ice to slow the rate of global warming.
I also use the opportunity to explore some confusing media reports around an IPCC report that predicted an "ice-free" Arctic much later than we'll probably get it.
(Science literacy & speculative fiction can go hand in hand. What fun!)
#ClimateCrisis https://onlysky.media/mclark/do-we-have-the-technology-to-ease-our-melting-ice-sheets/
I also posted a paid newsletter piece yesterday, part of which is free to read.
It's a more personal follow-up to last week's piece on Niger, Nigeria, & national myth - and discusses multidimensional poverty in a way that hits closer to all our homes.
If the topic interests, I can send the rest privately. (This semi-paywall strategy for second posts each week isn't my favourite, but trying to build a paid subscriber base requires nonsense like this. Oh industry.)
https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/what-multidimensional-poverty-takes
@MLClark I loved your analysis of these two treatments. I'll have to re-read the story - it has been some years since I first read it.
Thank you for reading, Peter! I appreciate the comments. This is a topic that, within the genre, some feel shouldn't be discussed at all - which is very silly, but also part and parcel of life in (most) social media bubbles. Hope your reading these days is quite stimulating. (I think you'd enjoy the Life Beyond Us anthology, too. Splendidly rigorous SF.)
@MLClark Yesterday's On Point radio program on NPR was about Niger. It was very good.
https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510053/on-point
And... also for folks interested in #SFF:
My review of China's adaptation of Three-Body Problem is now up at Strange Horizons. I talk about the benefit of watching this production to deepen our understanding, if nothing else, of the ongoing ideological challenges that confront our world as it strives to be united against common crises.
There are many ways to tell a story - and the way we choose tells a story, too.
#SFF #Reviews #CoSoTV
http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/three-body/