Nonfiction
Interview: Jill Tarter, Director of SETI
As the Director of the Center for SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Research, Dr. Tarter has devoted her career to the search for extraterrestrial life.
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Nonfiction
Author Spotlight
Author Spotlight: Eric Gregory
The action of the latter half of the story is set around a particular stretch of road in Cherokee National Forest. That road is the exact last place I’d ever want to run into hungry dead things, so of course I had to stick my characters there.
Editorial
Editorial, May 2011
Welcome to issue twelve of Lightspeed! On tap this month… Fiction: “The Harrowers” by Eric Gregory, “Bibi From Jupiter” by Tessa Mellas, “Eliot Wrote” by Nancy Kress, “Scales” by Alastair Reynolds. Nonfiction: “Feature Interview: Jill Tarter” by Genevieve Valentine, “The Icy Ecosystem of Europa” by Dr. Pamela Gay, “When the Brain Sees God on a Toaster Pastry” by The Evil Monkey, “Whose Thoughts Are You Thinking?” by Laura Waterstripe.
Artist Showcase
Artist Spotlight: Julie Dillon
I knew I wanted a glowing figure surrounded by floating creatures, and the idea to include mechanical fish developed as I was working on the piece.
Nonfiction
Interview: Elizabeth Bear
Elizabeth Bear should be a familiar name for anyone who even dabbles in science fiction and fantasy. Not only did she catapult into the scene by winning the Campbell Award for Best New Author in 2005, she never lost momentum.
Nonfiction
The Many Worlds Interpretation Theory: Having Your Cake and Eating it Two, and Three, and Four…
Maybe your parents told you to never talk politics or religion in polite company. It’s good advice in scientific circles, too, but with one addition: Never bring up interpretations of quantum mechanics.
Author Spotlight
Author Spotlight: Tom Crosshill
Some years ago Roger Penrose proposed the idea that the human brain relies on quantum properties for computation, using this to explain away self-awareness and intelligence (he was not the first or only person to express similar ideas, but he’s the best known).
Nonfiction
TANSTAAFL! (There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch)
Although gift economies have existed in various non-Western cultures for many years, academic scrutiny of the process began comparatively recently, when Marcel Mauss published “Essai sur le don” in 1924.
Author Spotlight
Author Spotlight: Bruce Sterling
The story is unique because it asks a question like “What would an Internet gift economy look like if it had some strongly Japanese cultural characteristics?” That’s how a story like “Maneki Neko” emerges.
Nonfiction
Parasitic Puppet-Masters
Parasites are masters of chemical warfare. To bypass their hosts’ many defense mechanisms, they have developed an amazing array of chemicals that can change and influence all kinds of body parts: Even brains.
