metacommentary (a) [04 Aug 2003|11:32pm] [ music | Sigur Ros - Svefn-G-Englar ] LISTENER is a book for the internet. The Introduction: Chapter 1: Chapter 2: The Metacommentary entries are pauses in the story where I decide to waste time talking about things related to the story so far. They don't count towards the sixty entries that comprise the book. Unless, you know, I decide otherwise. Or maybe I'll just change the number of entries the book is intended to be done in, 1984-style. * * * * * Was it Charlie Stross who coined "technogoth"? I started writing this kind of fiction in the late 1980s, well past the initial rush of cyberpunk. I can't really do the "steely extrapolation" (Sterling) that tends to define cyberpunk, because I'm crap at science, and back then I didn't have access to a decent flow of information to fake it. So I took on a different set of concerns under the stylistic blanket of Radical Hard SF, and for a while I called it Decadent SF, which seemed to fit LAZARUS CHURCHYARD better. That undertow of gorgeous misery. I think Charlie came up with technogoth at the same time, which probably sounds better, even if it's just as devoid of meaning. The short story writer Simon Logan has taken to calling his work "industrial fiction." Saves someone else doing it, and it does fit at least some of his work, grinding anthems of total alienation. Labels are fun if it's you coming up with them. Maybe technogoth should make a comeback. Just for the hell of it. * * * * * Sometimes I think of LiveJournal as the world's biggest technogoth community. LJ has been both lauded and derided as a space for people with black clothes and strange hair to work out their alienation and disaffection in electronic public. That hasn't stopped it being successful, and it hasn't stopped it being a tool for national and international networking. As a piece of "social software," it's not flawless, but its influence and effect has been huge. If nothing else, several thousand alt.models, often very ambitious and creative, seem to have hooked up together with this thing. An army could be formed. That would be an army worth supporting with taxes. In fact, it could probably be paid for by Paypal donation links. * * * * * CamoCam shades are an extrapolation from an experimental Japanese technology where cameras riding on but pointing behind a person feed to a projector in front of them. The image of the view behind them is projected on to their front, giving an appearance of partial human transparency. Give it a while, and someone will work out how to link the cams to LCD-lens shades. Yesterday, it was announced that Japanese researchers appear to be on to a way to run small devices off electrical current derived from blood glucose. Things just happen too damn fast. I love it. * * * * * I'm wondering how many people here have actually never read anything by me before. I'm guessing more than a few. Shout out. -- Warren

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