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Tag Archives: fiction
The Flutter of Space Bat Wings
The Flutter of Space Bat Wings You don’t actually know a time or a culture until you discover the thoughts that its people can’t allow themselves to think. I had a reminder of that the other day, by way of my novel Star’s Reach. I’m pleased to say that for a novel that violates pretty much […]
Retrotopia: Economics by Other Means
Retrotopia: Economics by Other Means This is the tenth installment of an exploration of some of the possible futures discussed on this blog, using the toolkit of narrative fiction. Our narrator catches a train for the agricultural hinterlands of the Lakeland Republic, and learns some of the reasons why the Republic is so hard to […]
The Heresy of Technological Choice
The Heresy of Technological Choice Among the interesting benefits of writing a blog like this, focusing as it does on the end of industrial civilization, are the opportunities it routinely affords for a glimpse at the stranger side of the collective thinking of our time. The last few weeks have been an unusually good source […]
Retrotopia: A Visit to the Capitol
Retrotopia: A Visit to the Capitol This is the ninth installment of an exploration of some of the possible futures discussed on this blog, using the toolkit of narrative fiction. Our narrator finally has his interview with the President of the Lakeland Republic, asks some hard questions, and prepares for a trip into unexpected territory. […]
Retrotopia: Inflows and Outputs
Retrotopia: Inflows and Outputs This is the eighth installment of an exploration of some of the possible futures discussed on this blog, using the toolkit of narrative fiction. Our narrator visits a city power plant that runs on an unexpected fuel source and a stock market subject to even less familiar rules… *********** By the […]
Retrotopia: A Question of Subsidies
Retrotopia: A Question of Subsidies This is the seventh installment of an exploration of some of the possible futures discussed on this blog, using the toolkit of narrative fiction. Our narrator visits a streetcar factory, asks some hard questions about the use of human labor in place of machines, and gets some answers he doesn’t […]
Retrotopia: The Scent of Ink on Paper
Retrotopia: The Scent of Ink on Paper This is the sixth installment of an exploration of some of the possible futures discussed on this blog, using the toolkit of narrative fiction. Our narrator, roaming the streets of the capitol of the Lakeland Republic, visits a newsstand and a public library, and discovers that information and […]
A Landscape of Dreams
A Landscape of Dreams Maybe it’s just the psychology of selective attention, but tolerably often when I want to go into more detail about a point made in a previous essay here, stories relevant to that point in one way or another start popping up on the news. That’s been true even during this blog’s […]
Retrotopia: A Change of Habit
Retrotopia: A Change of Habit I went back to the hotel for lunch. The wind had picked up further and was tossing stray randrops at anything in its path; my clothing was waterproof but not particularly warm, and I frankly envied the passersby their hats. For that matter, I wasn’t happy about the way that my […]
Retrotopia: A Cab Ride in Toledo
Retrotopia: A Cab Ride in Toledo This is the third installment of an exploration of some of the possible futures discussed on this blog, using the toolkit of narrative fiction. Our narrator arrives in the capital of the Lakeland Republic, and further surprises are in store. *********** The train pulled into the Toledo station something […]
Retrotopia: The View from a Moving Window
Retrotopia: The View from a Moving Window This is the second installment of an exploration of some of the possible futures discussed on this blog, using the toolkit of narrative fiction. Readers who haven’t been following The Archdruid Report for long may find it useful to remember that not everything seen along the way has a simple […]
Retrotopia: Dawn Train from Pittsburgh
Retrotopia: Dawn Train from Pittsburgh This is the first of a series of posts using the tools of narrative fiction to explore an alternative shape for the future. A hint to readers who haven’t been with The Archdruid Report for long: don’t expect all your questions to be answered right away. ********** I got to the Pittsburgh […]
Orwell’s Triumph: How Novels Tell the Truth of Surveillance
Orwell’s Triumph: How Novels Tell the Truth of Surveillance When government agencies and private companies access and synthesize our data, they take on the power to novelize our lives. Their profiles of our behavior are semi-fictional stories, pieced together from the digital traces we leave as we go about our days. No matter how many […]
Looking for Some Answers
Looking for Some Answers A few months back John Michael Greer, over at the Archdruid Report, wrote an essay about how we might begin to tackle the huge mental and emotional burden of dealing with collapse. It was noted that, for the most part, the majority of people simply don’t want to think about or discuss the […]
