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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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
The more information comes to light about how the Vosth behave and why, the less it makes sense, and the more questions there are demanding to be answered. And it’s hard to resist the call of an unanswered question.
The thing that appeals to me about SF is that to a large extent it allows you to be self-indulgent, and to give expression to your fantasies, which is very rewarding.
Welcome to issue eleven of Lightspeed! On tap this month… Fiction: “All That Touches the Air” by An Owomoyela, “Maneki Neko” by Bruce Sterling,”Mama, We are Zhenya, Your Son” by Tom Crosshill, “Velvet Fields” by Anne McCaffrey. Nonfiction: “Parasitic Puppetmasters” by Wendy Wagner, “TANSTAAFL: There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch” by Jeff Lester, “The Many Worlds Interpretation Theory: Having Your Cake and Eating it Two, and Three, and Four…” by Brad Deutsch, “Feature Interview: Elizabeth Bear” by Erin Stocks.
Ah, immortality: the ever-elusive dream of both utopians and transhumanists. To us, death is a necessary evil, but to many organisms, plants and fungi that form clonal colonies, it’s but a technicality.
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