What you hold in your hands is more than a book. If we are lucky, it is a revolution.
—
It is “steam engine time” for the writers of speculative fiction. The millennium is at hand. We are what’s happening.

-Harlan Ellison, from the Introduction to Dangerous Visions

They are two volumes: old by now and a little yellow around the edges, imposing both in size and scope. Seventy-nine stories by as many authors. The overloaded dynamite clump of an era.

The world had never seen anything like 1967’s Dangerous Visions or its 1972 follow-up, Again, Dangerous Visions. Enfant terrible Harlan Ellison bought together sci-fi’s old masters and a grand array of new talent to unleash a wave of stories sexy, violent and far enough out there that they’ll still shock the living hell out of you today. Attacking “the constricting narrowness of mind” that ran sci-fi, Ellison urged the authors: “Pull out all the stops, no holds barred, get it said!” They did.

If “All Tomorrows” is your informal classroom on the glories of the Deviant Age, consider these the fucking primers. They personify everything great and terrible about this time. Here, in paper form, are seventy-nine utterly genius minds cutting loose.

Here too, is the trilogy that was never finished. It is thirty-six years later, and The Last Dangerous Visions, the long-touted finale, is lost as the holy grail. Like its era, the Dangerous Visions series broke the old into tiny pieces and screamed towards the future — only to fall sickeningly short in a mix of bile-ridden hubris.

More on one of the greatest triumphs and tragedies science fiction has ever seen, after the jump.

Mother, I am in love with a robot.
No, she isn’t going to like that.
Mother, I am in love.
Are you, darling?
Oh yes, mother, yes I am. His hair is auburn, and his eyes are very large. Like amber. And his skin is silver.
Silence.
Mother, I’m in love.
With whom, dear?
His name is Silver.
How metallic.
Yes, It stands for Silver Ionized Locomotive Verisimulated Electronic Robot.
Silence. Silence. Silence.
Mother…

Thus opens Tanith Lee’s 1981 future inter-being romance, The Silver Metal Lover, a heart-wrenching exploration of romance, tech and yes, love.

It tells the story of Jane, plain by the standards of her future oligarchic city-state (a combination of Privatopia and Somatopia) and firmly under the thumb of her powerful and rich mother. Seethingly comfortable with her existence, she meets Silver, an entertainment robot, playing guitar and singing in the plaza. She’s embarrassed. Then angry. Then hopelessly in love. Before long she’s thrown her old life to the winds.

Short by the standards of most science fiction, with terrifyingly real characters, it packs a punch that’s not to be underestimated. When the The Silver Metal Lover is called a tearjerker, it’s the blunt truth.

Welcome back to All Tomorrows, dear reader, where we weekly comb possible futures from science fiction’s glorious deviant age (circa mid-’60s to mid-’80s). This time, we’ve got the late Michael G. (for Greatrex, best sci-fi middle name ever) Coney’s 1982 novel Cat Karina, as strange a tomorrow as you’re likely to see.

At some unspecified (by our time scale, at least) point in the future, humanity’s starfaring civilization has collapsed, leaving True Humans and “Specialists” (human animal-hybrids originally engineered for colonization) in an uneasy peace. On top of it all, the entire damn planet’s converted en masse to an alien religion called the Kikihuahua Examples, forbidding metal working, fire and killing. In all this, a young “felina” named Karina gets tied in with an immortal race of sorceresses, the Dedos, trying to manipulate possible futures to release their alien god from a reality bomb prison laid by clones of Hitler.

Got that?

The result of all the above could have, should have been a complete and utter mess. Instead, Coney pulls off a future shock fairy tale (and parable) for the ages. More about why vegetarian bat aliens will doom us all, after the jump.

Happy birthday to Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, patron saint of computer programmers. “The Enchantress of Numbers” was born this day in 1815, in London, the only legitimate (tch, what an insulting term that is!) child of Lord Byron. Her mother, Isabelle –a math whiz in her own right nicknamed “The Princess of Parallelograms” by P.M. Benjamin Disraeli– separated from Byron shortly after Ada’s birth, and raised her to be unlike her eccentric poet father, emphasizing tutelage in music and math. (Ada never met Lord Byron, who died in Greece, aged 36.)

Ada Lovelace is best known for her work describing the Analytical Engine, an early mechanical general-purpose computer conceived by mathematician/inventor/philosopher Charles Babbage. Today, she’s recognized as the “first programmer” for her work on the computing machine that Babbage hadn’t even built yet. Unlike Babbage or anyone else, she had the foresight to recognize the potential for computers to evolve past simple calculations and number-crunching. Her voluminous notes included predictions for future developments as far-out as computer-generated music! She accomplished this in an era where, to put it gently, noblewomen were not encouraged to engage in such rigorous intellectual pursuits.

Like her father, Lovelace was headstrong, prone to fits of melodrama, and she died young. Her family buried her next to Lord Byron in the yard of the Church of St Mary Magdalene in 1852.

Related items of interest:

• Lovelace biography by Dr. Betty Toole
• somewhat racy Ada biography from J.J. O’Connor and E.F. Robertson
• The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling
• Conceiving Ada (starring Tilda Swinton, Karen Black, and Timothy Leary)

Sometimes, when you’ve had a really long, hard day, all you need is a certain type of image to relax you. Images that take you to your Happy Place. For some people it’s kittens, for some people it’s pr0n, for others still they’re abstract patterns. For me, it’s stuff like the work of Benedict Cambpell, a UK-based photographer whose sleek digital masterpieces make my mind go blank – the best way possible. There’s a lot of Sorayama in them, some Chris Cunningham, some Ridley Scott, and some really fun ’60s and ’70s style. Campbell’s a master technician both behind the lens and in front of the monitor; he can take a clean, textured, razor-sharp photo, then turn around and pull off a hyperdetailed, realistic-looking digital scene. When he combines the two talents, the results are unbelievable. Some of my favorite images (including 1 hot, NSWF number) after the jump.

Also, on a completely unrelated note, I’m in Phoenix, Arizona tomorrow, just for one night. I have no idea what to do there. Coilhouse readers in the area – drop me a line!

It was a time when society seemed both crumbling and poised for something new. Old barriers fell, including in the very writing invented to consider the future. To the new breed it was now a vehicle to explore endless possible societies, to consider and endless array of tomorrows: weird, wonderful or horrible.

During this period, lasting roughly from the mid-60s to the early ’80s, science fiction went through a sea change like no other. The resulting works tackled issues of culture, society, ethics and sex in ways that make them still fresh today. Some of the writers went on to fame (if rarely fortune), while others remain obscure. However, in this period sci-fi considered tomorrows that involved far more than just bigger machinery. Today, we face some eerily similar questions – and would do well to delve into their possible answers.

Thanks to an unusually well-stocked used bookstore in my hometown, this is the stuff I grew up on. Most of it was contained in dusty volumes, worth seeking out and taking home when you found them. All Tomorrows will be a weekly feature taking a look at one of these works and the possibilities it raises. Everything featured here isn’t just thought provoking, but damn fine reading as well.

This time, we have the legendary Samuel R. Delany’s 1976 “ambiguous heterotopia” Trouble on Triton (just Triton in my ragtag version). Delany and “groundbreaking” go hand in hand, as any perusal of the man’s formidable body of work will reveal. There’s an excerpt from his forthcoming book, Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders, in the first issue of Coilhouse. You should read it.

Now, as for Triton, it struck me upon second glance that it describes a world that for many of us would be close to paradise. There are no such things as alternate cultures on the future society of Triton, ensconced in its domes, because there’s no such thing as a mainstream to begin with. Any lifestyle goes and all basic needs are provided. Dress how you want, live how you want. If you’re unhappy with your flesh, your sex, your body in any way, the technology exists to change it. Hell, it’s not even unusual (more like a surgical oil change). Want to see what attraction to a whole different spectrum of people feels like? There’s a machine for that too. If, after all this, you’re not satisfied with the few laws that do exist, each city has a sector where none of them apply (realizing such places develop anyway). Anything is possible.

Or is it? Look at the title.

First, I’m going to meet this guy… no, wait, this guy. And he’s going to give me this ring. And on our wedding day, I’m going to wear this dress, and eat this cake. And on our wedding night, I’ll wear this, and hopefully these will work, but if not, it’s cool, because I’ve always wanted to put together one of these! We’re going to build this kind of home. With these couches, and this dog. And if anyone dares to break into our house to steal our our awesome toaster… we’re gonna blow them away with this AK-47. So when it comes time the birthing to commence, I’m gonna fly Hello Kitty Airlines to Taiwan. From the airport, I’ll be rushed to the new Hau Sheng Hospital in this car, and there, I’m going to give birth to one of these. And he’ll grow up to be this big!

But seriously, this new Hello Kitty maternity hospital that just opened in Taiwan is the place to be. According to Reuters:

Newborns get everything Hello Kitty but a set of whiskers, including pink or blue receiving blankets, nurses dressed in pink uniforms with cat-themed aprons, cot linen and room decor. In the lobby, a Hello Kitty statue in a doctor’s uniform greets patients, and twice a year people in feline costumes visit mothers and children. The cat’s likeness even shows up on birth certificate covers.

I wish I could get born there.

When the dust settled from the October Revolution in 1917, diagnosis there was a brief, shining period of uninhibited artistic experimentation in Russia. Before the authorities clamped down on such “decadent” behavior, Russian artists in the 1920s explored communist ideals with more sincerity, hope and optimism than probably at any other time in history in every medium, from architecture to graphic design. In the realm of film, this exploration manifested itself as Kino-Eye, or camera eye. Devotees of this filmmaking style believed that the camera should be used to record the truth of Soviet life without the aid of screenplays, actors, makeup or sets. “I am kino-eye, I am mechanical eye,” wrote Dziga Vertov in the Kino Eye Manifesto in 1923. “I, a machine, show you the world as only I can see it.” The crowning achievement of the movement was the 1929 film Man with a Movie Camera, made by Dziga Vertov (a name that translates to “Spinning Top”) and his brother, Boris Kaufman. The film presents the day in the life of a Soviet city from morning until night, with citizens “at work and at play, and interacting with the machinery of modern life.”  The below is Part 6 of Man with a Movie Camera, one of the most dynamic sequences in the film (the entire film is behind the cut). Best if watched with speakers on:

Though the original, which premiered at a planetarium in Hanover at an event hosted by Kurt Schwitters (someone get me a time machine, now!), was silent, the director left behind notes for how music for this film should be composed. Dozens of interpretations have emerged over the years; the Biosphere, In the Nursery and Cinematic Orchestra versions are among the most well-known.

Sadly, things didn’t end well for Dziga Vertov in Russia, though they ended better for him than for most people in his position. When Socialist Realism was declared the “official form of art” in 1934, many of his colleagues were ostracized or exiled. Vertov was able to get away with a couple more films in the 30s, but they were edited to conform to the government’s expectations. After his last creative film, Lullaby, in 1937, Vertov worked on editing Soviet newsreels for the rest of his life. Interestingly, his brother Boris was able to move to America and worked with Elia Kazan and Sidney Lumet as a cinematographer. Kazan infamously named many colleagues as communists to McCarthy’s committee, but Vertov’s brother wasn’t one of them. I wonder if the two brothers stayed in touch, and how they felt about their work and how their lives had diverged. Was Vertov a bitter man as a news editor? Not necessarily; a lot of people, even when robbed of their ability to make art, made up excuses and remained devoted to communist ideals to the very end.  And how did his brother Boris Kaufman fare in the paranoid environment of McCarthyism? Who felt that he got the better end of the deal, I wonder?

[via my pops, who now has a blog]

First they ignore you,
then they laugh at you,
then they fight you,
then you win.

-Gandhi

(Thanks for that reminder, Jennifer.)

Frank Capley and his partner Joe Alfano hug as they hold signs during a same sex marriage demonstration October 15, 2007. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Twenty-four hours ago, like so many Americans, I was wandering the jubilant streets in a daze. Complete strangers cheered and danced together, wept and embraced. The tension we’d held in our bodies for untold years seemed to flood out through the soles of our feet and into the gutters. It was a historic night for everyone.

But the joyful tears have already evaporated on my cheeks. My heart is still breaking, because at this point, it looks like California’s Prop 8 will pass by a narrow 3-4 point margin. Prop 2 in Florida and Prop 102 in Arizona have been voted in as well. Once again, majority rule has demanded that we inject the most base and despicable kind of bigotry into our constitution.

Don’t get me wrong… those of us who supported Obama’s campaign have many reasons to rejoice right now, and we should. Keep dancing, keep hoping. Please know that I don’t mean to detract from everyone’s happiness today. But the success of three constitutional amendments written explicitly to deny two people who love each other equal rights and recognition under the law is devastating.

Many of you have already seen the footage I posted two weeks ago in Nadya’s Prop 8 thread after being assaulted by a group of Prop 8 demonstrators. Just in case you haven’t, I think it’s worth reposting. Be warned, the screams are deafening. You’ll want to turn the volume down:

The Face of Proposition 8 from Theremina on Vimeo.
Read my full account of the incident here, if you like. I’ll freely admit my bias, but this is not agitprop. Rest assured, their behavior was just as horrific in person.

In the weeks leading up to last night’s election, in my experience and that of millions more activists across the country, this was the true face of Proposition 8. If you can watch it and still insist there’s nothing inherently cruel, disturbing or divisive about the underlying motivations to ban same-sex marriage, forgive me, but I’m not open to discussing the matter further with you. It would be pointless. How could I ever reach affable agreement with anyone who insists on relegating gay Americans to second class citizenship?

Silver lining: the main reason supporters of a ban on same-sex marriage are kicking up such a row is that on some level, they realize they’re a dying breed. That sooner than later, this kind of litigation won’t be any more acceptable than the irrational mob rule endured by other minority groups in the past.

Traditionally and historically, the institution of marriage has been more about security and property than religion, or even love itself. Ironically –given the rage and denial of so many people who claim to follow the teachings of a loving and compassionate Christ– I dare say marriage is never more purely about acknowledging love than in this context. I know that if she were alive today, Mildred Loving would agree. Because keeping folks “separate but equal” never results in equality.

A heads up to anyone with a hankering for some really fantastic “practical” steampunk worldbuilding and storytelling who isn’t yet familiar with FreakAngels: the first story arc of Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield’s groundbreaking webcomic has been collected in a scrumptious 144 page trade paperback. It’s available today in North America, and tomorrow in the UK and other territories. Meanwhile, all past installments of FreakAngels will remain online as a free serialized weekly. You can check them out, starting here.

Warren chatted with NEWSARAMA about his process:

As far as how it works: it’s the TV model. FreakAngels is free-to-air, but the eventual collected editions will cost money. I can watch pretty much any TV show I want, on the box or on the net, but for something I like, I’d rather have the complete DVD handy.

Makes sense, right? Go get some.