Podcasts about Olaf Stapledon

Today we're bouncing off our recent conversation with evolutionary biologist, Dr. Michael Lachmann from SFI, and unpacking why the modern definition of life sucks and why it matters. We attempt to construct a more scientific (i.e. less circular) definition of life and take it for a walk in the park. As a test case we examine an inadvertent hypothesis, which stems from Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker, a science fiction work that supposes stars themselves have an interior life and that when they move according to gravity they are simply doing the dance of a school of fishes or drivers on a freeway. We pull out cases where the stars satisfy a scientific definition of life and also problems with the theory. The notion forces us to reconsider the limits of life and its possible forms in the universe. READ OLAF STAPLEDON'S STAR MAKER: https://amzn.to/4fkT6jd PATREON: get episodes early + join our weekly Patron Chat https://bit.ly/3lcAasB MERCH: Rock some DemystifySci gear : https://demystifysci.myspreadshop.com/ AMAZON: Do your shopping through this link: https://amzn.to/3YyoT98 (00:00) Go! (00:06:01) Rethinking Life's Definition (00:09:03) Anthropocentric cosmology (00:14:47) Life's Persistence (00:23:16) Harnessing Tension (00:30:20) Information and Evolution (00:36:29) Life Beyond Earth (00:41:13) Cosmic Communication (00:47:37) Communication and Understanding (00:57:00) Communication Across the Cosmos (01:10:47) Galactic Dynamics and Gravity (01:13:31) Stars as Autonomous Entities; Olaf Stapledon (01:22:29) Life's Potential Ubiquity (01:25:32 )Science's Quest for Understanding #LifeBeyondEarth, #LifeDefinition, #ExtraterrestrialLife, #starmaker, #CosmicPerception, #StellarLife, #Astrobiology, #PhilosophyOfLife, #CosmicCommunication, #GalacticDynamics, #StellarConsciousness, #UniversalLife, #ScienceAndPhilosophy, , #CosmicInteractions, #StellarProcesses, #LifeInTheUniverse, #Astrophysics, #SpaceExploration, #CosmicEvolution, #InterstellarCommunication, #LifeAndTheCosmos, #sciencepodcast, #longformpodcast Check our short-films channel, @DemystifySci: https://www.youtube.com/c/DemystifyingScience AND our material science investigations of atomics, @MaterialAtomics https://www.youtube.com/@MaterialAtomics Join our mailing list https://bit.ly/3v3kz2S PODCAST INFO: Anastasia completed her PhD studying bioelectricity at Columbia University. When not talking to brilliant people or making movies, she spends her time painting, reading, and guiding backcountry excursions. Shilo also did his PhD at Columbia studying the elastic properties of molecular water. When he's not in the film studio, he's exploring sound in music. They are both freelance professors at various universities. - Blog: http://DemystifySci.com/blog - RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/2be66934/podcast/rss - Donate: https://bit.ly/3wkPqaD - Swag: https://bit.ly/2PXdC2y SOCIAL: - Discord: https://discord.gg/MJzKT8CQub - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/DemystifySci - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/DemystifySci/ - Twitter: https://twitter.com/DemystifySci MUSIC: -Shilo Delay: https://g.co/kgs/oty671

Take our Listener Survey Michael Nielsen is scientist who helped pioneer quantum computing and the modern open science movement. He's worked at Y Combinator, co-authored on scientific progress with Patrick Collison, and is a prolific writer, reader, commentator, and mentor.  He joined Tyler to discuss why the universe is so beautiful to human eyes (but not ears), how to find good collaborators, the influence of Simone Weil, where Olaf Stapledon's understand of the social word went wrong, potential applications of quantum computing, the (rising) status of linear algebra, what makes for physicists who age well, finding young mentors, why some scientific fields have pre-print platforms and others don't, how so many crummy journals survive, the threat of cheap nukes, the many unknowns of Mars colonization, techniques for paying closer attention, what you learn when visiting the USS Midway, why he changed his mind about Emergent Ventures, why he didn't join OpenAI in 2015, what he'll learn next, and more.  Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video. Recorded March 24th, 2024. Other ways to connect Follow us on X and Instagram Follow Tyler on X Follow Michael on X Sign up for our newsletter Join our Discord Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.

May we all one day experience whatever chemically induced metaphysical journey Olaf went on in preparation for writing this book. Possibly while writing this book (as we surmise in the episode). Truly a unique, completely wild work of scientific speculation that must have been an absolute revolution in it's day. This is no pulp "Damsel in Space" drama like other 1930's science fiction. This is an epic journey beyond the bounds of human space, mortal consciousness, and all conceivable dimensions. Olaf makes us feel things about nebulas I didn't know was possible. Join us on this journey through time, space, and credibility with this months Strange and Beautiful Book Club - Book of the Month. Links to referenced books:"Our Vitreous Womb" by Haldane B. Doyle"A River Divided" by George Paxinos"Geometry for Ocelots" by Exurbia"The Worthing Saga" by Orson Scott Card...There's more from the Strange and Beautiful Network!Listen to Rachel, Kate, and Hannah discuss spicy books, serious books, and everything in between (but mostly spicy!). It's like sitting down with girl friends to chat about hot book boyfriends but in podcast format! Listen now at Feast, Sheath, Shatter: A Book Chat PodcastLove Movies, TV Shows and Books in the Fantasy, Scifi, and Horror genre and want to hear more? Check us out at The Strange and Beautiful Book Club where Rachel and her husband Matt discuss all things genre related.Longing for a simpler time in the police procedural genre AND love Vampires? Matt and Rachel also review the classic television show Forever Knight on their podcast, Come in 81 Kilo.You can also:Join us on Instagram here: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/strangeandbeautifulbookclub/⁠⁠⁠Join us on Patreon here: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/strangeandbeautifulbookclub⁠⁠⁠Find us on YouTube here: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz9ENwKdHrm57Qmu8L4WXwQ⁠⁠⁠ ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Disfruta la Navidad conociendo quienes son los personajes que rodean al niño Jesús el día de su nacimiento en un pesebre de Belén, y de qué manera estos son representados en la literatura. Patricia del Río nos da detalles del origen y costumbres al armar los nacimientos en Navidad. Fue San Francisco de Asís quien representó la llegada del niño Jesús al mundo, inspirado en las historias que los evangelistas Lucas y Mateo describieron en la Biblia. Desde entonces, se ha repetido esta tradición por más de ocho siglos. Conoce cómo la estrella, el burro, el buey y los Reyes Magos son mencionados en diversas obras literarias: ‘El hacedor de estrellas', de Olaf Stapledon; ‘Platero y yo', de Juan Ramón Jiménez; ‘Don Quijote de la Mancha', de Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (en alusión al burro fiel de Sancho Panza); ‘El verano peligroso', de Ernest Hemingway; ‘El origen de la tradición de los Reyes Magos y los regalos', un artículo de J.M. Sadurni para National Geographic; ‘Los Reyes Magos', de Michel Tournier; y ‘Ángel de Ocongate', de Edgardo Rivera Martínez; Conducción, guion y coproducción: Patricia del Río - Producción: Amelia Villanueva - Edición y posproducción: Andrés Rodríguez. Este programa se transmite los sábados y domingos a las 7:00 de la noche por RPP, la voz de todo el Perú.

On The Literary Life podcast today, our hosts continue their discussion of C. S. Lewis' science fiction novel Out of the Silent Planet, covering chapters 6-15. Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins, and Thomas Banks begin by sharing their commonplace quotes, including some heated debate about sausages, then dive in to this section. They start by looking at Ransom's need to let go of some of his own modern preconceptions and categories, in spite of being steeped in the classics. Angelina, Thomas, and Cindy also discuss a variety of other themes, including: the contrasts between Lewis and Tolkien in world-building, Lewis' crafting a medieval tale in the genre of modern science fiction, and the problems with Ransom's anthro-centric perspective. House of Humane Letters is thrilled to announce an all new webinar from Dr. Jason Baxter coming October 31st! Register today for Can Dante's Inferno Save the World? Also coming up from House of Humane Letters on November 16, 2023, Jennifer Rogers' webinar on Tolkien and The Old English Tradition. You can sign up nowand save your spot! Commonplace Quotes: It is to me inconceivable that Nature as we see it is either what God intended or merely evil; it looks like a good thing spoiled. C. S. Lewis, from Letters of C. S. Lewis What do you usually do when you are shut up in a secret room, with no chance of getting out for hours? As for me, I always say poetry to myself. It is one of the uses of poetry–one says it to oneself in distressing circumstances of that kind, or when one has to wait at railway stations, or when one cannot get to sleep at night. You will find poetry most useful for this purpose. So learn plenty of it, and be sure it is the best kind, because this is most useful as well as most agreeable. Edith Nesbit, from The House of Arden Lewis began the trilogy as a conscious critique of what he called “Wellsianity,” a philosophy that applies Darwinism to the metaphysical sphere, believing that humans may evolve into a new species of gods, spreading from world to world and galaxy to galaxy. Though one finds this quasi-religious belief sometimes called “Evolutionism” in Olaf Stapledon, G. B. Shaw, and C. H. Waddington, Lewis found it most fully embodied in Wells' novels, and he set out to produce a Wellsian fantasy with an anti-Welsian theme. Lewis' Ransom books contrast so sharply from other stories of space voyages that Robert Scholes and Eric S. Rabkin credit him with inventing a new genre: “anti-science fiction.” from Reading the Classics with C. S. Lewis, edited by Thomas L. Martin A Selection from “I Saw Eternity the Other Night” by Henry Vaughn I saw Eternity the other night, Like a great ring of pure and endless light, All calm, as it was bright; And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years, Driv'n by the spheres Like a vast shadow mov'd; in which the world And all her train were hurl'd. Books Mentioned: Kingsley Amis William Morris Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CindyRollinsWriter. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

The British writer LP Hartley opened his novel “The Go-Between” with an unforgettable line “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” There's a long-standing idea of literature being a vehicle to explore these “foreign countries”, be they temporal or geographical or cultural.  My guest today has been one of the most innovative voices with regard to the immigrant experience, especially through his 2007 novel “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”. Junot Díaz is a Dominican-American writer who won the Pulitzer Prize for that novel, thanks to its incredibly modern story-telling. The prose was insane, with different characters' vernacular switching on and off, the timelines, inspirations, characters felt incredibly fresh and exciting. It's the story of a young Dominican-American boy who navigates this new world of America, whilst pining for the homeland of the Dominican Republican, and he copes with this, and with the turmoil of adolescence, by immersing himself in typical teen nerd culture of comics, and sci-fi. If you haven't read that book, then I strongly suggest that you do. Junot Diaz is now a Professor of Creative Writing at MIT (the Massachussetts Institute of Technology) as well as a contributing editor to the Boston Review of Fiction. In this episode, we talk about his inspirations for his work, his process and what makes him tick as an artist. A list of the books mentioned in the episode: The book I've never heard of: Incantations and Other Stories, by Anjana Appachana (1991) Best book of the last 12 months: “The Sellout” by Paul Beatty (2015) Most disappointing book of the last 12 months: “Star Maker”, by Olaf Stapledon (1937) Which book would he take to a desert island: Either “Beloved” by Toni Morrison (1987) or “Dhalgren”, a sci-fi novel by Samuel Delany (1975) What book changed his mind: “City of Quartz” by Mike Davis (1990) Follow me ⁠⁠⁠@litwithcharles⁠⁠⁠ for more book reviews and recommendations!

Para acceder al programa sin interrupción de comerciales, suscríbete a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/elvillegas ENVEJEZCA O MUÉRASE https://www.elvillegas.cl/producto/envejezca/ INSURRECCIÓN Chile https://www.elvillegas.cl/producto/insurreccion/ Internacional por Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09WZ29DTQ TAMBIÉN APÓYANOS EN FLOW: https://www.flow.cl/app/web/pagarBtnPago.php?token=0yq6qal Grandes Invitados en Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09X1LN5GH Encuentra a El Villegas en: Web: http://www.elvillegas.cl Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elvillegaschile Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/elvillegaschile Soundcloud: https://www.soundcloud.com/elvillegaspodcast Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7zQ3np197HvCmLF95wx99K Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elvillegaschile

Últimos y primeros hombres: una historia del futuro cercano y lejano es una novela de ciencia ficción de " historia futura " escrita en 1930 por el autor británico Olaf Stapledon . Una obra de una escala sin precedentes en el género, describe la historia de la humanidad desde el presente en adelante a lo largo de dos mil millones de años y dieciocho especies humanas distintas, de las cuales la nuestra es la primera. ¡Ciencia ficción de la buena!

AI generated artwork is so common now that many art communities are banning it outright. In the last three months we have seen the first comic book drawn entirely by AI algorithm, the 'Abolition of Man', based on C.S. Lewis' writings. Just this week the first bio-generated graphic novel, an expression of Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker, infuriated artists as its 706 illustrated pages were generated in 100 hours. But it's not just artwork. Cryptic nightmarish monsters have also appeared online. CRUNGUS was birthed during the witching hour of 3 am while the new female creature LOAB has striking similarities to MOMO. Creepypasta are simply not stories of horror on the internet. They have taken on a life of their own through magical means and manifested in the real world, which then creates a loop back into the Internet. The new movie Grimcutty is a great example. Conjure Pasta is the process by which they are summoned. Rather than receiving inspiration from Source, the Tree of Life has been inverted to draw inspiration from the depths of hell. We want mystery, horror, and fantasy, and this is exactly what the AI delivers.

Containing matters in which the Frankenstein story is extrapolated from the Wolf, hitherto known as Wolfenstein. Timestamps: introductions (0:00) Olaf Stapledon biography/non-spoiler discussion (6:25) spoiler plot summary (24:42) general discussion (1:08:06) Bibliography: McCarthy, Patrick A. - "Olaf Stapledon" (1982) Moskowitz, Sam - "Far future calling: Uncollected science fiction and fantasies of Olaf Stapledon" (1974) Swanson, Roy Arthur - "The Spiritual Factor in Odd John and Sirius", Science Fiction Studies Vol. 9, No. 3, The Science Fiction of Olaf Stapledon (Nov., 1982)

General Visit Andrew's website: https://www.andrewscurran.com/ Find out more about Andrew's books, including ‘The Anatomy of Blackness: Science and Slavery in an Age of Enlightenment' and his co-edited, with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., volume ‘Who's Black and Why? A Hidden Chapter from the Eighteenth-Century Invention of Race', which are the focus of this podcast: https://www.andrewscurran.com/books-gallerypage Follow Andrew on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andrewscurran References Andrew's previous appearance on Two for Tea discussing Diderot: https://soundcloud.com/twoforteapodcast/42-andy-curren-diderot-intellectual-libertine Olaf Stapledon's novel ‘Sirius': https://www.amazon.com/Sirius-Olaf-Stapledon/dp/0575099429/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1656949127&sr=8-2 Theory-ladenness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory-ladenness David Deutsch's ‘The Beginning of Infinity', in which he discusses theory-ladenness: https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Infinity-Explanations-Transform-World/dp/0143121359 Coleman Hughes's conversation with Charles Murray on race, science, and IQ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE5QcD_12fQ David Deutsch's Edge essay on the link between the factual understanding of reality and morality: https://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Infinity-Explanations-Transform-World/dp/0143121359 Sunil Khilnani's book ‘Incarnations: A History of India in Fifty Lives': https://www.amazon.com/Incarnations-History-India-Fifty-Lives/dp/0374175497 Timestamps 00:00 Opening and introduction. 3:24 Andrew reads from the introduction to ‘Who's Black and Why?' on the Bordeaux Academy's interest in African anatomy and ‘scientific' race theorising. 9:08 Why did a focus on racial physiognomy arise in the middle of the 18th century? Plus background on the Enlightenment and the radical shift in ways of thinking about the world. 14:19 The Biblical narrative of the origins of race - Noah's sons and the ‘snowflake' Old Testament God - and 18th-century theories of degeneration. Monogenesis vs. polygenesis. Implications of these views and their place in the Enlightenment paradigm - the world is not fixed, but has a history of development and change. 23:38 ‘Theory-laden observations' as related to 18th-century thinking about race and humanity. 26:30 Iona reads an excerpt about Diderot and Voltaire's views on race and slavery from ‘Who's Black and Why?'. 33:45 Continued discussion of the link between racial theorising and racism. 46:27 Iona on the instability of being anti-slavery while being racist, with reference to Olaf Stapledon's novel ‘Sirius'. Ensuing discussion of this theme by Andrew as related to the 18th-century - the legal and then scientific reality of categorising people. 54:54 Iona's relief that her Enlightenment hero Samuel Johnson is, as far as she knows, untainted by racial theorising. 1:03:02 The contemporary debate on race and IQ. Can we really divorce the is from the ought? Iona's changing view on this after reading ‘Who's Black and Why?'. Nature vs nurture and Charles Murray. 1:09:59 The Deutschian idea that a better understanding of reality is linked to better morality. 18th-century thinkers on race and their blindspots - many of their assertions could easily have been disproved just by looking - black blood, black semen, black brains. 1:15:35 The literal obsession with colour - skin colour must be reflected in interior anatomy. The disturbing and telling 18th-century view of albinism - ‘white negroes' - and vitiligo and racial voyeurism. 1:23:30 Racial essentialism vs the many mixed-race people. Again - how close so many 18th-century thinkers got to the truth, yet how far. 1:26:52 Is there anything Andrew would like to say that hasn't been covered in this conversation? 1:27:27 Andrew's upcoming book - a biographical history of race. 1:33:11 Last words and outro.

0:00 -- Intro.1:30 -- Start of interview.3:32 -- Santi's "origin story". He was  born and grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina. "The year 1983 was a symbolic year in Argentina because it's the year that democracy came back to the country." "My generation was tainted by two events: the hyperinflation of 1989 and the collapse of 2001 (peso devaluation and bank deposit freezes)."5:11 -- Argentina's strange political case. 7:24 -- Santi's professional background going from gaming, to founding "Partido de la Red" (the "Net Party") in 2012 - a political party in Argentina (inspired by Giorgio Jackson), and his pivot to crypto.14:04 -- His endeavors with Democracy Earth Foundation and UBI (Universal Basic Income through the Ethereum blockchain). The impact of Bitcoin and the new generation of builders in Argentina, with global leaders such as Decentraland. The strong adoption of crypto in countries like Argentina, Venezuela and Cuba: "There is a real need for crypto in countries that need an alternative."16:12  -- The connection of crypto with corporate governance. His interest on voting "we realized that whoever controls the registry of voters can decide the outcome of elections." The concept of Proof of Humanity ("the protocol got activated in March 2021 and it has had 50 proposals since then." How voting works in this DAO. "You see how contested the positions are to the extent of how people are willing to cheat in order to win." 23:19 -- Explaining DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations). Different DAO applications. Token voting. On The DAO hack (2016).25:59 -- On the evolution of DAOs. On Vitalik Buterin (co-founder of Ethereum): "I think he's today's most inspiring leader in technology, by far. In the same rank as Elon Musk, and many other great ones." "A lot of the [crypto] community looks up to him as a role model who really understands what it means to lead through the process of creation of a decentralized network." "It's a very counter-intuitive exercise in leadership because you actually need to reject being in control, in order to gain legitimacy." "The role that founders play in these networks I think is a determinant factor in the outcome of how projects evolve over time." "Nothing ever begins decentralized, it needs to be progressively decentralized throughout time." "Building institutionality in cyberspace I think has tremendous power for coordination of humans and capital in a global, more legitimate way."28:46 -- On the role of founders, contrast between 'traditional' founder-controlled startups and new decentralized crypto projects. On Vitalik's founder's take in a reply to Balaji Sirinivasan's book the Network State. Santi has personally dealt with some of these founder debates, he's currently a Mission Board Member at Proof of Humanity, elected by the community.32:32 -- On the contrast of "corporate governance" and "crypto or DAO governance". "One of the most interesting projects in the space right now, I think is a project called Kleros, a decentralized arbitration service for disputes of the new economy." "They work as oracles that bring into the blockchain human judgment, based on a drafted policy or guideline." This is very important for enforcement, and to audit the decision process. On-chain governance vs Off-chain governance. The cases of Aragon and Moloch DAO (founded by Ameen Soleimani). "In Proof of Humanity, we don't want voting to be on-chain, because it makes it expensive to vote. The purpose of voting is to be an alternative to economic incentives. So voting needs to happen off-chain for voting to remain free [and] a right." Snapshot as the off-chain voting mechanism. Kleros' Governor solution.42:18 -- On Proof of Humanity (~16,630 profiles), its DAO, and UBI. "Argentina and Brazil are two of the leading adopters of UBI right now." Proof of Integrity DAO (promoting technological inclusion).47:44 -- On the current "crypto crash", the cases of Terra/Luna, Celsius. "You can see the ripples of Terra going down throughout the industry, it led to the Celsius and 3AC collapse... you can see the dominoes falling in a very clear way."55:12 -- On the advantage of understanding how to code. [reference to Vitalik's visit to Buenos Aires in his podcast "Por Qué No Te Habré Hecho Caso" (a leading crypto podcast in Spanish] 57:10 - Some of the books that have greatly influenced his life: The Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon (1937) *prologue written by Jorge Luis Borges.Gödel, Escher, Bach, by Douglas Hofstadter  (1979) "the bible of Artificial Intelligence"The Sovereign Individual, by William Rees-Mogg and James Dale Davidson. (1997)59:44 - Who were your mentors, and what did you learn from them? Emiliano Kargieman, now CEO and founder of Satellogic.*story of Vitalik Buterin's visit to Buenos Aires in Dec of 2021.*on El Salvador's Bitcoin adoption by President Nayib Bukele.01:08:22 - Are there any quotes you think of often or live your life by? "Sic transit gloria [Mundi]" (Latin for "Glory Fades" or "thus passes the glory of the world") *he first heard about it in Wes Anderson's movie Rushmore (1998). 01:09:23 -  An unusual habit or an absurd thing that he loves: Iglesia Maradoniana!01:10:31 - The living person he most admires: his brother Liniers, a famous Argentinean cartoonist. "It was like growing up with Walt Disney."Santi Siri is the Founder of Democracy Earth Foundation, a non-profit organization backed by Y Combinator that built Universal Basic Income (UBI) on Ethereum and launched Proof of Humanity, where he serves as a Mission Board Member. He was the founder of "Partido de la Red"  (the "Net Party") in Argentina, and is the currently the host of the podcast "Por Qué No Te Habré Hecho Caso", focusing on crypto (in Spanish). He has been featured on Wired, Time and many other media outlets.__ You can follow Santi on social media at:Twitter: @santisiriUBI token: @ubidotethProof of Humanity DAO: @PoHDAODemocracy Earth: @DemocracyEarth__ You can follow Evan on social media at:Twitter: @evanepsteinLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/ Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/__Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

In this episode, we compare two novels with dog protagonists and discuss form, technique, and how a writer can represent nonhuman minds.

I don't even know where to start with this amazing episode. Henry Gee is the Senior Editor of Nature, the author of many cool science books including his latest, A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth; an accomplished musician; a riveting storyteller and humorous fellow; the Founding Editor of Nature's Futures sci-fi series; and a total joy in conversation. We met to discuss his brilliant tour of evolutionary history past and future, and did, but also occupied a fair bit of our two hours together sharing stories about paleontologists, talking music, gabbing about our love of science fiction, and being ridiculous.I've decided to not bother editing this one because (1) I'm finally getting bold enough to give not-editing a shot; and (2) it was SO VERY ENJOYABLE that I am not sure I could survive a second listen without a second conversation already on the calendar. Consequently, you don't get the normal intensely-detailed show notes, but among the many things we discusses are: synthesizers; feathered dinosaurs; symbiosis as the defining feature of the future of the biosphere; the relationship between good science and good science fiction; why Olaf Stapledon is one of the most important sci-fi authors of the 20th Century; and as I've already said, much else.Visit the episode page on Patreon for a heap of related episodes if this one lights a fire in your mind...✨ Housekeeping• If you want to see these conversations thrive, support Future Fossils on Patreon and please leave a good review on Apple Podcasts! As a patron you get extra podcasts each month, book club calls, early access to new writing, art, and music, and special access to our exclusive (and very active) Facebook group and Discord server.• Find and obtain all the books we discuss on this show at the Future Fossils Bookshop.• When you'd rather listen to music, follow me on Bandcamp and (if you must) Spotify. Get bonus content on PatreonSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/futurefossils. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We are back after a month-long hiatus! We discuss Olaf Stapledon's 'Sirius', a book about a human-level-intelligence dog, set in the 1930s and 1940s. The book came out in 1944 and explores what it means to be human, and the challenges for a true outsider to fit into human society, especially when he has no society of his own. Next books: Leviathan Falls by James SA Corey and The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. Email us with questions, comments, requests or recommendations at PoonaSFBookClub@gmail.com Our theme music is The Vendetta by Stefan Kartenberg (c) copyright 2018 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/JeffSpeed68/58628 Ft: Apoxode

Learn about why daddy longlegs aren't dangerous; the theoretical Dyson Sphere; and benefits of exercising with a partner. Please vote for Curiosity Daily in the 2021 People's Choice Podcast Awards! Register at https://podcastawards.com, select Curiosity Daily in the categories of Education and Science & Medicine, and then click/tap "save nominations" at the bottom of the page. Voting in other categories is optional. Your vote is greatly appreciated! “Daddy Longlegs Myths, Dyson Spheres, Benefits of Exercising with a Partner” originally aired May 15, 2018: https://omny.fm/shows/curiosity-daily/daddy-longlegs-myths-dyson-spheres-and-benefits-of  Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day withCody Gough andAshley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

#26: The year is 1930 and if you wanted a college text book version of all your favorite sci-fi tropes, this book has everything! Fission! Air ships! Biological warfare! Martians! Hive minds! Eugenics! Telepathy! Genocide via Terraforming! Not-Gallifreyans! No homo polyamory :( So many apocalypses, my god, why did it take so much time??? Come for a major inspiration of some classic modern sci-fi, stay for the beef with C.S. Lewis. Support us at https://www.patreon.com/nellachronism Follow the progress of the Apocalist here. Follow us on twitter @ApocalistC, Email us at ApocalistBookClub@gmail.com CREDITS: Art by Michael Vincent Bramley. Music by Robare Pruyn. Sound editing by Crutch Phrase Studio.

Paris Marx is joined by Aaron Benanav to discuss why jobs are getting worse because the economy’s slowing down, not because technology is speeding up, and why that requires a vision of post-scarcity centered around human relationships instead of technological change.Aaron Benanav is an economic historian and social theorist. He is a post-doctoral researcher at Humboldt University of Berlin and author of “Automation and the Future of Work.” Follow Aaron on Twitter as @abenanav.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network and follow it on Twitter as @harbingertweets.Also mentioned in this episode:Prop 22 passed in California, stopping gig workers from becoming employeesParis explains the limits of a basic income, how Aaron’s book helps us think about the future, and the problems with luxury communismAaron explains why automation isn’t wiping out jobsAaron’s science fiction reading list: “The Dispossessed,” “The Word for World is Forest,” and “Always Coming Home” by Ursula K. Le Guin; “Red Star” by Alexander Bogdanov; “Hard to be a God” and “Noon: 22nd Century” by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky; “News from Nowhere” by William Morris; “Looking Backward” by Edward Bellamy; “The Conquest of Bread” by Peter Kropotkin; “Trouble on Triton” by Samuel R. Delaney; “Star Maker” by Olaf Stapledon; and “Utopia” by Thomas Moore.Support the show (https://patreon.com/techwontsaveus)

Olaf Stapledon and C. S. Lewis both explored the spiritual side of science fiction, albeit in very different ways. In this episode, we explore how they went about it and why one of them is considered a must read by many of the greats of the genre. Book recommendation: Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon.

Are we living at the end of history? Not according to Olaf Stapledon, who conceived of 2 billion years of future history to come in his book Last and First Men. When we talk about the sweeping sprawl of all that could yet be, this is what we're talking about! Support us on Patreon and listen to the show a week early! Phil's Patreon Adam's Patreon What Mad Universe?!? on Twitter Adam's Twitter Phil's Twitter What Mad Universe on Facebook What Mad Universe on Instagram What Mad Universe RSS Feed Engineer/Producer: Alex Ross Theme song by Jack Feerick Additional music: "Lost In Space" by JupiterWave on Looperman This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

En nuestra quincuagésima sexta edición nos metemos con uno de los grandes clásicos del género: Olaf Stapledon. Comentamos sus obras: - La última y la primera humanidad (1930) - Juan Raro (1935) - Hacedor de estrellas (1937) - Sirio (1944) De fondo nos acompaña el disco "Kontinuum" de Klaus Schulze y despedimos con "Messages" de OMD. La sintonía es el "Spectre Detector" de los Tiki Tones como de costumbre. Síguenos y contacta con nosotros a través de Facebook en https://www.facebook.com/retronautas, en Twitter en @losretronautas, o escríbenos a nuestro correo electrónico: losretronautas@yahoo.com Y si quieres ayudar a que la Retardis siga volando puedes unirte a la infantería móvil retronaútica en: https://www.patreon.com/losretronautas o aquí mismo en Ivoox. Serás informado de nuestros planes de vuelo, podrás participar en los sorteos de libros y comics y tendrás acceso a los podcast "Micronautas" exclusivos para patrocinadores.

En nuestra quincuagésima sexta edición nos metemos con uno de los grandes clásicos del género: Olaf Stapledon. Comentamos sus obras: - La última y la primera humanidad (1930) - Juan Raro (1935) - Hacedor de estrellas (1937) - Sirio (1944) De fondo nos acompaña el disco "Kontinuum" de Klaus Schulze y despedimos con "Messages" de OMD. La sintonía es el "Spectre Detector" de los Tiki Tones como de costumbre. Síguenos y contacta con nosotros a través de Facebook en https://www.facebook.com/retronautas, en Twitter en @losretronautas, o escríbenos a nuestro correo electrónico: losretronautas@yahoo.com Y si quieres ayudar a que la Retardis siga volando puedes unirte a la infantería móvil retronaútica en: https://www.patreon.com/losretronautas o aquí mismo en Ivoox. Serás informado de nuestros planes de vuelo, podrás participar en los sorteos de libros y comics y tendrás acceso a los podcast "Micronautas" exclusivos para patrocinadores.

The Knight reads an emotional poem about a dying sea bird he recently encountered, we hear from Jack Luna of Dark Topic/Crime Machine, and ask readers from around the world what books have influenced them. Titles discussed include Usher's Passing by Robert R. Mccammon, The Power of Intention by Dar. Wayne W. Dyer, Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon, Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes,  Pharaoh's Pump by Edward Kunkel, Quiet by Susan Cain, and All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven. 

Thoughts and readings from the literary classic "Star Maker" by Olaf Stapledon. This story is hugely useful as inspiration for new ideas about the creation, and perhaps also the nature of comsos(es). Thanks for listening! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thesciencepodcast/message

Es una obra de ciencia ficción, escrita por el autor inglés Olaf Stapledon. En ella se detalla un viaje intergaláctico y la forma como interactua con otras especies, incluyendo estrellas y al mismo Hacedor de Estrellas.

A World Of Sound by Olaf Stapledon

My graduate advisor Sean Esbjörn-Hargens is one of the most consistently inspiring and refreshingly different thinkers I’ve ever met. In our first Future Fossils conversation, we discussed his work to apply a profoundly “meta” and pluralistic philosophy to the everyday work of organizational development and social impact. In this discussion, we turn over the rock and examine his decades of inquiry into some of the world’s most puzzling and confounding phenomena – namely, those surrounding the UFO and its aura of science-challenging incursions into mundane reality. Might “Exostudies” be the locus of a transformation in how we understand reality? This is not your normal New Age conversation about aliens, but a rigorous look into the persistent weirdness and problematic implications of one of humankind’s greatest mysteries. As Phil Dick famously said, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” If UFOs are here to stay – with all of their attendant provocations to our oversimple categories (self and other, artificial and natural, hallucination and perception, physical and immaterial) – then we are overdue for a new definition of “reality.” In preparation for his Exostudies online course this fall, we look at how to make sense of the stubbornly ineffable – an evolutionary call to take up higher-dimensional logic and more nuanced understandings of What Is…http://www.exostudies.org/“When you go into the UFO field, at least with an open heart and mind, you come across some really crazy shit. It is a freakshow. There are so many bizarre claims being made by standup citizens who are quite believable in what they are saying, even though what they’re saying just does not map onto our general view of reality.”“The truth is stranger than science fiction. Not just fiction, but science fiction.”“The phenomenon is subjective and objective; it’s subjective and objective simultaneously; and it’s neither. So I think what it’s asking us is to re-examine the relationship between mind and matter, and how do we relate to subject and object, and how has our current scientific methodology failed us horribly in having a more sophisticated answer or framing or understanding of how these two aspects are related.”“There are really good, legitimate photographs, and trace evidence, and all kinds of physical evidence for UFO craft and other otherworldly realities…and yet, there are so many fakes. And how do you sift through all that? You almost can’t.”“We’re entering into an augmented and virtual space that’s going to be ontologically fragmented, and highly pluralistic, and solipsistic. So how do we navigate that culturally? I don’t know, but I think we’re largely unprepared.”“We’re not that far from discovering some form of mini-life elsewhere. And as soon as that happens, then the floodgates are going to open in considering the implications of that.”“So many UFO or ET enthusiasts often want to put everything in one box, like ‘they’re all bad,’ ‘they’re all good,’ ‘they’re all future versions of ourselves.’ I think it’s much messier than that.”“I think one of the core strategies is hermeneutic generosity. A sense of critical thinking, but from a place of generosity, where we stay open. Postmodernism has been so jaded – the hermeneutics of suspicion – I think when we approach these phenomena, we need a different orientation.”“To really bring any kind of justice to this inquiry, we need to draw on the best thinking from as many kinds of disciplines as we can – because the phenomenon is that big, and that mysterious, and that paradoxical. So anything short of a meta, integrative approach – and even that – is going to fail.”Mentioned:Diana Slattery, John Mack, Avi Loeb, Ken Wilber, Jeff Kripal, Whitley Strieber, Arthur Brock, George Knapp, John C. Wright, Olaf Stapledon, Stuart Davis, Jeff Salzman, Richard Doyle, Carl Jung, Terence McKenna, William Irwin Thompson, DW Pasulka, Eric Wargo, Jacques ValleeSean’s appearance on the Daily Evolver Podcast:https://www.dailyevolver.com/2019/02/taking-aliens-seriously/If you liked this episode, check out Episodes 60 & Episode 91:https://shows.pippa.io/futurefossils/episodes/60https://shows.pippa.io/futurefossils/episodes/91 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Man of Tomorrow returns with another book review...but this time it's a triple load! Discussing early science fiction in general, and one of its earliest figures--Olaf Stapledon--the Golden Stallion reviews three of his seminal works: Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future (1930) Odd John: A Story Between Jest and Earnest (1935) Star Maker (1937) You don't want to miss out on a review of what Brian Sovryn claims is now his favorite book of all time! WOOO! Listen in! ========================= https://www.zog.email

The Man of Tomorrow returns with another book review...but this time it's a triple load! Discussing early science fiction in general, and one of its earliest figures--Olaf Stapledon--the Golden Stallion reviews three of his seminal works: Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future (1930) Odd John: A Story Between Jest and Earnest (1935) Star Maker (1937) You don't want to miss out on a review of what Brian Sovryn claims is now his favorite book of all time! WOOO! Listen in! ========================= https://www.zog.email

Without the Sun our world would be a frozen wasteland, and for this reason any efforts to colonize the galaxy must focus on huddling in the tiny oases of warmth around stars, separated from each other by enormous gulfs of interstellar space. But what if we could make our own stars at the places of our choosing? And can we merely mimic nature or create stars unlike anything which nature has formed? Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/ShC63MiURrc Use my link http://www.audible.com/isaac or text "ISAAC" to 500-500 to get a free book including a copy of Olaf Stapledon's "Star Maker" Visit our Website: http://www.isaacarthur.net Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/IsaacArthur SFIA Merchandise available: https://www.signil.com/sfia/ Social Media: Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1583992725237264/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/IsaacArthur/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Isaac_A_Arthur on Twitter and RT our future content. SFIA Discord Server: https://discord.gg/53GAShE Credits: Making Suns Episode 168, Season 5 E02 Written by Isaac Arthur Editors A.T. Long Darius Said D. Hemanshi Edward Nardella Keith Blockus Matthew Acker Stuart Graham https://beyondnerva.wordpress.com Cover Art Jakub Grygier Graphics by Bryan Versteeg http://spacehabs.com Fishy Tree https://www.deviantart.com/fishytree/ Jarred Eagley Jeremy Jozwik https://www.artstation.com/zeuxis_of_losdiajana Justin Dixon Katie Byrne Kris Holland (Mafic Studios) www.maficstudios.com Ken York https://www.facebook.com/YDVisual/ LegionTech Studios https://hades9.com Luca DeRosa Mihail Yordanov Sam McNamara Sergio Botero https://www.artstation.com/sboterod?fref=gc Produced & Narrated by: Isaac Arthur Music Manager: Luca De Rosa - lucaderosa2@live.com Music: Denny Schneidemesser, "Luminous Rays" https://soundcloud.com/denny-schneidemesser Stellardrone, "The Belt of Orion" https://stellardrone.bandcamp.com Lombus, "Goldilocks Analemma" Kai Engel, "Endless Story About Sun and Moon" https://www.kai-engel.com/ Aerium,"2 Drowned Holodecks" https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRnUJY3l5vIJFGsY3XvW4dQ Serena Ellis, "Science" https://soundcloud.com/serenaelis Stellardrone, "Twilight" https://stellardrone.bandcamp.com

Without the Sun our world would be a frozen wasteland, and for this reason any efforts to colonize the galaxy must focus on huddling in the tiny oases of warmth around stars, separated from each other by enormous gulfs of interstellar space. But what if we could make our own stars at the places of our choosing? And can we merely mimic nature or create stars unlike anything which nature has formed? Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/ShC63MiURrc Use my link http://www.audible.com/isaac or text "ISAAC" to 500-500 to get a free book including a copy of Olaf Stapledon's "Star Maker" Visit our Website: http://www.isaacarthur.net Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/IsaacArthur SFIA Merchandise available: https://www.signil.com/sfia/ Social Media: Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1583992725237264/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/IsaacArthur/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Isaac_A_Arthur on Twitter and RT our future content. SFIA Discord Server: https://discord.gg/53GAShE Credits: Making Suns Episode 168, Season 5 E02 Written by Isaac Arthur Editors A.T. Long Darius Said D. Hemanshi Edward Nardella Keith Blockus Matthew Acker Stuart Graham https://beyondnerva.wordpress.com Cover Art Jakub Grygier Graphics by Bryan Versteeg http://spacehabs.com Fishy Tree https://www.deviantart.com/fishytree/ Jarred Eagley Jeremy Jozwik https://www.artstation.com/zeuxis_of_losdiajana Justin Dixon Katie Byrne Kris Holland (Mafic Studios) www.maficstudios.com Ken York https://www.facebook.com/YDVisual/ LegionTech Studios https://hades9.com Luca DeRosa Mihail Yordanov Sam McNamara Sergio Botero https://www.artstation.com/sboterod?fref=gc Produced & Narrated by: Isaac Arthur Music Manager: Luca De Rosa - lucaderosa2@live.com Music: Denny Schneidemesser, "Luminous Rays" https://soundcloud.com/denny-schneidemesser Stellardrone, "The Belt of Orion" https://stellardrone.bandcamp.com Lombus, "Goldilocks Analemma" Kai Engel, "Endless Story About Sun and Moon" https://www.kai-engel.com/ Aerium,"2 Drowned Holodecks" https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRnUJY3l5vIJFGsY3XvW4dQ Serena Ellis, "Science" https://soundcloud.com/serenaelis Stellardrone, "Twilight" https://stellardrone.bandcamp.com

My father was a sci-fi fan of the old school.  The man had the entire original Star Trek series on VHS, commercial free, and an Enterprise technical manual.  So in his honor, a little late for Father's Day, we go back in time to look to the future as we dive into the wormhole of classic sci-fi.   With segments voiced by Shaun Ennis, host of Stories of Yore and Yours. Topics include Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, HG Wells, Robert Chambers and cosmic horror, NOT H. P. Lovecraft, William Hodgson and dying earth, Richard Jeffries and the invention of post-apocalptia, Olaf Stapledon and the multi-verse, the origin of the word "robot," Hugo Gernsback's Amazing Stories, John Campbell's Astounding Stories, the first and the longest-running sci-fi TV show and where all the tapes went, and the OG of sci-fi... Star Trek! You can find all the links used to research this episodes on our website, but here's the one you wanted, the pics of the skant uniform.  Reach out and touch Moxie on Facebook, Twitter,  or Instagram.  Music by Kevin MacLeod and sound effects from freesound.org.

In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: Here's How the Average American Household Spends Its Money This Is the 1930s Novel that Described Sci-Fi Tropes Decades Before Anyone Else https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/525304.Star_Maker  Some People Are Born With Their Organs Reversed Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day withCody Gough andAshley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week’s guest is David Bronner, grandson of Dr. Emanuel Bronner and the heir to and CEO (“Cosmic Engagement Officer”) of Dr. Bronner’s Soap Company. He’s also an outspoken advocate for psychedelic medicines and visionary culture, and has used his wealth and influence in awesome ways to support the collective healing of American society. In this episode we discuss his advocacy and activism, and the life-changing experiences that brought him to his current understanding and role in helping bring about a saner and more loving world…Subscribe to this show:Apple Podcasts • Stitcher • SpotifyJoin our Facebook Discussion GroupDavid:https://www.drbronner.com/about/ourselves/the-dr-bronners-story/https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/05/dr-bronners-magic-soap-david-bronner-gmo-hemp/Donate to the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies:http://maps.org/donateWe Discuss:• The visionary science fiction novels of Olaf Stapledon, Last & First Men and The Starmaker• How David reconciles a sweeping cosmic vision with the day-to-day realities of work in the world• His experiences with iboga and the consequent deep experience of connection to the life and work of his father and grandfather• His grandfather’s development of a firefighting foam used today by the forestry service to fight wildfires, and his childhood of blasting foam everywhere around Los Angeles• Life artistry and appreciation for our families as life artists• Epigenetic inheritance of trauma and how that affects the survivors of catastrophe• Healing starts with you and THEN grows outward• The history of the Dr Bronner’s foam showers at Burning Man and how David and his friends turned it into an immersive experience to help transmute the pain and suffering of The Holocaust• Society as a finite game obsessed with maintenance; contrasted with culture as an infinite game delighting in renewal and novelty• Managing wealth as an act of service to the collective• How entheogen helped David over his conditioned homophobia and jealousy• The origins of religion in ecstatic experience• David’s passion for regenerative agriculture and political action (for hemp, transgender rights, psychedelic-assisted therapies, and more)• Catharsis, the healing-focused Burning Man inspired cultural event held on the National Mall that David has helped organize in recent yearsDavid Quotes:“All is on the cross.”“These sacred traditions that have almost been exterminated have the power the heal us and save us.”“It’s deadly serious, but it’s also a dream…I don’t know.”“I knew I was being initiated…like, ‘Okay, this is happening. So what is the least karmic consequence for all involved?’”Michael Quotes:“The difference between Heaven & Hell is how hard you’re trying.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

El Maestro William Hope Hodgson, escritor de inmenso talento e imaginación publicó por primera vez nuestro relato de esta noche en el número de Noviembre de 1907 de la revista de ficciones Blue Book Magazine. El mar, que desempeñó un papel tan importante en su vida, estuvo siempre presente en su obra. Marino de profesión, supo recrear como nadie un terror incierto y delirante. De sus delirios oceánicos, a través de relatos y novelas de ficción fantástica, se inspiraron en buena medida posteriores maestros de la literatura de terror materialista. Desde August Derleth, pasando por Clark Asthon Smith, Olaf Stapledon, Arthur C. Clarke, o el propio Maestro Lovecraft que siempre reconoció su influencia y llegó a comentar sobre la literatura de Hodgson que: "estaba dotada de una fuerza a veces tremenda en sus evocaciones de mundos y seres ocultos tras la superficie ordinaria de la vida". Escucha el episodio completo en la app de iVoox, o descubre todo el catálogo de iVoox Originals

The Hugo winner and multiple New York Times bestselling science fiction author, John Scalzi, took a break from his whirlwind new book tour to chat with me about The Collapsing Empire, the timely importance of great storytelling, and what makes a writer truly great. Rainmaker.FM is Brought to You By Discover why more than 80,000 companies in 135 countries choose WP Engine for managed WordPress hosting. Start getting more from your site today! His wildly popular debut novel, Old Man’s War, began as a serialized blog before attracting attention from an agent. Its 2006 publication earned him a Hugo nomination and multiple awards. Since then he’s written dozens of novels including New York Times bestsellers The Last Colony, Fuzzy Nation, Redshirts (2013’s Hugo winner for Best Novel), and Lock In. His work has been translated into over 20 languages and multiple projects have been optioned for film and TV. It’s no surprise that the prolific author has been a professional writer since the early ’90s. In addition to his award-winning blog, “Whatever,” John has written: freelance journalism, novellas, short stories, a wide-range of non-fiction, video games, been a Creative Consultant for a hit TV series, and remains a Critic at Large for the LA Times. In 2015 the author signed a multi-million dollar deal with Tor Books for 13 titles over 10 years, and the first of those is The Collapsing Empire, a bestselling interstellar space opera that’s been described as “Game of Thrones meets Dune.” If you’re a fan of The Writer Files, click subscribe to automatically see new interviews. If you missed the first half you can find it right here. In Part Two of this file John Scalzi and I discuss: Why this isn’t the worst time in human history … by a long shot The writer’s unique workflow and technological polyglotism Creativity as a survival instinct How luck and persistence can play a part in your success as a writer Why you really only need to focus on the things you can control Listen to The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience below ... Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes The Show Notes If you’re ready to see for yourself why over 194,000 website owners trust StudioPress — the industry standard for premium WordPress themes and plugins — just go to Rainmaker.FM/StudioPress How Hugo Award Winning Sci-Fi Author John Scalzi Writes: Part One Whatever – John Scalzi’s Hugo Award winning blog Announcing The Expanding Tour 2017! 24 Cities! Five Weeks! The Collapsing Empire – John Scalzi John Scalzi’s author page on Amazon John Scalzi, Science Fiction Writer, Signs $3.4 Million Deal for 13 Books – New York Times John Scalzi on Twitter Kelton Reid on Twitter The Transcript How Hugo Award Winning Sci-Fi Author John Scalzi Writes: Part Two Voiceover: Rainmaker FM. Kelton Reid: Welcome back to The Writer Files. I am still your host, Kelton Reid, here to take you on another tour of the habits, habitats, and brains of renowned writers. In part two of this file, the Hugo winner and multiple New York Times best selling science fiction author, John Scalzi, took a break from his whirlwind new book tour to chat with me about The Collapsing Empire, the timely importance of storytelling, and what makes a writer truly great. His wildly popular debut novel Old Man’s War began as a serialized blog before attracting attention from an agent and editor. Its 2006 publication earned him a Hugo nomination and multiple awards. Since then he’s written dozens of novels including New York Times best sellers The Last Colony, Fuzzy Nation, Red Shirts, and Lock In. His work has been translated into over 20 languages and multiple projects have been optioned for film and TV. It’s no surprise that the prolific author has been a professional writer since the early nineties. In addition to his award winning blog Whatever, John has written freelance journalism, novellas, short stories, a wide range of nonfiction, video games, been a creative consultant for a hit TV series, and remains a critic at large for the LA Times. In 2015, the author signed a multimillion dollar deal with Tor Books for 13 titles over 10 years, and the first of those is The Collapsing Empire, a best selling, interstellar space opera, that has been described as Game of Thrones meets Dune. And in part two of this file, John and I discuss why this isn’t the worst time in human history by a long shot, the writer’s unique workflow and technological polyglotism, creativity as a survival instinct, how luck and persistence can play a part in your success as a writer, and why you really only need to focus on the things you can control. The Writer Files is brought to you by the all the new StudioPress Sites, a turnkey solution that combines the ease of an all-in-one website builder with the flexible power of WordPress. It’s perfect for authors, bloggers, podcasters, and affiliate marketers, as well as those selling physical products, digital downloads, and membership programs. If you’re ready to take your WordPress site to the next level, see for yourself why over 200,000 website owners trust StudioPress. Go to Rainmaker.FM/StudioPress now. That’s Rainmaker.FM/StudioPress. And if you’re a fan of The Writer Files, please click subscribe to automatically see new interviews as soon as they’re published. Why This Isn t the Worst Time in Human History By a Long Shot Kelton Reid: You know, I mean all I can come back to is that it seems like now more than ever, and any time in history, we do need these great stories, don’t we? We need great storytellers like yourself to help us through the rough patches, so … John Scalzi: I think that humans story tell, no matter what we do. And to get into the sort of, Now let’s talk about the mystical aspects of writing. But that’s how we communicate with each other. We tell each other stories about what we want, we tell each other stories about what’s going on, we tell each other stories about who we want to be, and then try to meet up with those things. We are a storytelling species. That’s what we do. I know that this isn’t the worst that it’s ever been, do you know what I mean? Kelton Reid: Oh yeah. John Scalzi: I was talking to somebody and, you know, the whole idea that 2016 was terrible and 2017 has been worse. And I have the position that 2017 is a terrible year, but it’s not as bad as 2016 because we knew 2017 was going to be bad. You know? We knew in November that it was like, Okay here we go. 2016 could have had the potential to be a wonderful year, and yet, the very first thing it did was take David Bowie. And that’s when we knew that 2016 wasn’t messing around, it was going to take a chunk out of us. But even then, 2016 is not a patch on 1939, it’s not a patch on 1492 if you’re looking at a … if you’re someone who has any sense of history and what 1492 did to the people who lived in the Americas. There has always been awful times. There have always also, within those horrible years, there have been wonderful things as well. We have always needed stories, we have always needed people to tell us that it’s going to be better, and also to remind us that things are good. It feels terrible right now. I mean, I imagine there are some people who are like “Yes, 2017 has been going exactly to plan.” I don’t know who they are, because even the people who thought that they were going to be happy with what they were getting have basically been surprised with what they got. But, as far as it goes, even within those difficulties, there have been good things too. And I think we owe it to ourselves as storytellers to help mitigate pain and to accentuate joy to the extent that we can do that, that’s great. It’s not all up to us. But we’ve always had to do that, every year has had its challenges, every year has been a great year and a terrible year as well. And true that this year seems below average in terms of joy and happiness, but I think that we can still find things that we are happy about and share them with each other. And that’s part of the gig, you’re right. The Writer s Unique Workflow and Technological Polyglotism Kelton Reid: Yeah. Some good perspective there, for sure. Good things to remember, especially for writers. Just to touch on workflow really quick before I plug your brain about creativity itself. I know you’ve been a Mac guy forever. Are you still a Mac user? John Scalzi: No actually, I haven’t been a Mac guy … I was a Mac guy for a very brief period between 2005 and 2007, professionally. When I started writing was right around the same time the first Macintoshes came out, so from about 1984 to about 1991 I was a Mac dude, then I went over to PC, had a brief moment of Mac-ness and then I ve gone back to PC. And now I’m using Chromebooks a lot, too. So I’m all over the place. I’m not a faithful person, computer wise. I am computer-poly. That’s the way I want to say it. Kelton Reid: Sure, sure. Well that’s cool. So just for other writers who might be curious about the Chromebook workflow, then are you … I mean, how are you capturing, or getting stuff onto the page in a Chromebook? Are you using a dedicated cloud service? John Scalzi: Well what happens is, the nice things about Chromebooks is that they are super integrated into the Google ecosystem and Google has a suite of productivity apps that are basically cloud based, so Google Docs and the other stuff that they use. I mostly use Google Docs. And so when I’m writing on a Chromebook I will use Google Docs, particularly for shorter works, like short stories, articles, and stuff like that. But, when I need something a little more full featured, I can also access … these days I can access Microsoft Word online through Office 365. So when I’m at my desktop I’ll be writing on Word, I will save it to Office 365, as well as keeping a local copy. Because as you know as a writer, it’s so easy to lose things. Multiple copies is … keeps you from going crazy. And then I can pull it up on the Chromebook, provided I have an internet connection. Which you have these days almost everywhere, including on planes, so it’s less of a problem. The one thing I like about Google Docs, which every other online word processor hasn’t figured it out yet, much to my confusion, is that Google Docs actually has a ruler so that I can indent, you know? And it seems like a small thing, but honestly, indenting now means that I don’t have to indent later, you know. And so Office 365, the Word Online doesn’t have it. You actually have to do all those formatting things that you want to do, you have to actually do them in a document on a desktop or a laptop that is Windows capable and then save that document to the cloud, rather than starting a new document and having the formatting that you want. But I just think that’s stupid. But yeah … Five or six years ago when the Chromebooks were coming out, I tried writing a novel on them, and I couldn’t because they weren’t there yet. But now, it’s actually really easy to do. Enough so that when I’m on tour I’m taking the Acer C302 with me, both as my main computer and also it flips over to be a tablet so I can do my readings on that as well. And it’s become a really versatile thing for a writer on the road. Now, I wouldn’t try to do heavy duty video editing on it, or audio editing, or photo editing. But for regular old editing, for regular old writing, it’s everything I need at this point. And it’s cheaper. I had to come down to the decision between the Acer C302A and a Dell XPS13, and both of them are beautiful computers and I would have been happy with either, but one was half the cost. And also was cheap enough that if I lost it in an airport, which I have done with previous laptops, then I would be upset, but I wouldn’t be, “I just lost a $1,500 computer” upset I would be, “Ugh, all right. Time to get another Chromebook.” Kelton Reid: Yeah, yeah. All good points there. Well that’s cool and interesting. You don’t hear that everyday. So how does John Scalzi unwind at the end of a long writing day? John Scalzi: With more writing usually, because I’m an idiot, apparently. So I get done with my writing for the day, and then I will often flip over to my website and I’ll write a web entry, or a blog entry, or I will go on Twitter and I will yell at my friends and they’ll yell back at me. I do things other than writing but it is the thing that I actually enjoy, so I tend to do a little bit more writing before I m done with the day. Eventually, my wife comes home and my child comes home and we spend time with each other as family. My wife and I will watch something on TV, or watch a movie and we’ll talk. But my life is basically fairly simple and staid. We don’t go off and have wacky adventures at the end of each day. I actually am a creature who enjoys his comforts. So family and pets and home are things that appeal to me. So basically what I’m admitting is that I’m a hobbit. Kelton Reid: Right, right. Good stuff, good stuff. All right, well, if you have the time, I’d love to pick your brain a little bit about creativity. John Scalzi: Yeah, let’s do it. Creativity as a Survival Instinct Kelton Reid: Okay. So do you have a definition of, kind of your own definition of creativity for writers? John Scalzi: For me particularly, I think creativity is the ability to both imagine a world in your head and be able to express that, what’s in your head, to others. And I guess one of the fundamental questions is where does that creativity come from? Why are some people creative and some people aren’t? And I don’t know that I have a really good answer to that. I mean, I think about my wife. My wife is one of the most awesome people in the world. She is super smart, she is super organized, she keeps Team Scalzi together. She is the CEO, I am the figurehead chairman, right? But she does all the work. My life would be miserable and unhappy without her, not only emotionally, but from a business point of view. And she is perfect, and I love her, and she doesn’t have a creative bone in her body and she is the first to admit it. And what does that mean? Does it mean that she is less of a person? Obviously not, she’s not. But, it does mean that there’s some part of her brain that doesn’t work the way my brain works. And it goes both ways. There’s things that she can do that I can’t do and I’m sort of amazed that she can get them done. She is an amazing straight line thinker. You present her with the problem, she doesn’t do the nerd over thinking thing of going 16,000 different places. She just goes “This is what needs to get done.” And then later on, after I’ve gone 16,000 different places, I’m like, “You were absolutely right and you have that offer a month ago, whereas I had to go through all this other stuff.” And I think maybe that’s the thing, is the people who are creative in one way or another, you might say they’re the people who overthink, who do all the scenarios. What does that mean? You say hello to someone and they say hello back, and you’re like “Why did they say hello in exactly that way? Was there something going … I think I noticed some strain in their voice. What was going on?” And then you imagine the scenario where they say hello to you, but it’s filled with a tinge of regret and wistfulness and all this sort of stuff. Whereas most people would just be like, “He said hello. What more do you want out of it?” But it’s like “I need to know more.” So, I think maybe there is a correlation between creativity and just overthinking. Which would correspond, I think, in a way to why the stereotype of writers is that they’re neurotic in one way or another, because neurosis often exhibits itself as a sort of making up multiple scenarios, most of them terrible, and then trying to figure out what to do with that. It’s rooted in biology in some way or another, I’m absolutely sure. Maybe you needed creative people back on the savannah to go … someone say, “Well we just need to go to that tree right over there,” you know? And they’d be like “But wait, between here and the tree, how many different predators do you think there are? Because I ve imagined 17 of them, and they would all eat us.” Right? So that creativity was not about writing, but it was about, somebody has to think about all the ways that this could go horribly wrong. So maybe that’s where creativity comes from. It’s a survival tactic for the tribe. Not everybody has to be creative, and indeed, if you only had a group of creative people in your tribe, maybe you would never get anything done because they would be paralyzed by indecision. You need someone to go, “Screw it, we’re going to go do this thing.” But by the same token, you need the people who go, “Let’s play out that scenario.” So I think that that’s probably part of it. That creativity eventually comes from the need not to have ourselves or other people eaten by leopards. I don’t know, is that the usual answer? You tell me. Kelton Reid: It is. No, in a nutshell, yes. Thank you. Exactly the usual answer. Three Sources of John Scalzi s Creativity Kelton Reid: I love it, I love it. So do you have some creative force that’s driving you right now? Or just sort of in general something that makes you feel most creative? John Scalzi: I used to say that the driving creative force in my life was my mortgage. Which people laughed and I was like “No, seriously. I don’t want to have to work doing anything else. And I have to pay my mortgage, so that is a primary focus.” And then I would give the example of how creativity can come from anywhere. It’s like, why is Crime and Punishment a 600 page masterpiece of guilt and redemption? Is it because that was the form Dostoyevsky had always had in his mind for it? Or was it that Dostoyevsky had gambling debts and Crime and Punishment was a serial that was published in a magazine and that it behooved him to have it go on as long as humanly possible, because he had gambling debts. And the answer is a little of column A and a little of column B. So there’s a lot of material aspects to my creativity. It was, a lot of times, I didn’t want to have to do anything else for a job, I did want to have a house, I did want to eat, I did want my daughter to have shoes. And I think there’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that aspect. Another aspect that people don’t want to acknowledge all the time, because it sounds ignoble, but I started writing stories when I was 14 years old because I wrote them and it got me attention, right? All of my friends were like, “Wow, you do this really well.” So I would write stories and they would star my friends and they would do ridiculous things, you know, and it was awesome. And so I’ve always had that attention seeking aspect of my creativity. I ve never kept a personal journal. Writing in the “Dear diary, today I did blah blah blah blah.” Because I would only be writing for myself. One of the reasons that I wrote a blog was because I wanted to tell people what I was thinking, you know? And in some ways that’s good. It can edge into mansplaining, which is a thing that I’ve certainly been accused of more than once in my lifetime. I’m a recovering mansplainer, I hope to get better as I go along. But that want and desire for attention is absolutely a part of what fuels my creativity, because this is a way that I can say to people, “Hey, I have value. Not only do I have value, but you’re going to love me for these things that come out of my brain.” So those are two things, and then the third thing is the less noble, but simply, I overthink. I think of the world, I imagine scenarios, they seem interesting to me, and my brain is going to create anyway. I have absolutely no control over that, it’s always been that way. It’s not onerous for me. The thing, the question that I get, that all writers get, that I never understand is, “Where do you get your ideas?” And it’s like, they just show up. The question is not, Where do you get ideas? I’ve got 20 or 30 ideas a day. The question is, How do you know the good ideas from the bad ideas? And my answer for that is that something comes in my brain it’s like, “Here’s an idea!” It’s like, “Wow, that’s a great idea!” And I don’t write it down. And if the next day I actually remember it, then I’m like, “Huh, maybe this is a good idea.” And then I don’t write it down again, and then I keep giving ideas a whole bunch of opportunities to leave my brain. And most of them do, but a few stick, and those are the ones that I write. But the creative thing is natural. And it’s just a thing that I think that anybody who has a creative urge in some ways has a hard time explaining it. And not only with writing, but any sort of thing. Like I look at friends of mine who are wonderful artists and I see what comes out of their hands and I’m amazed, because there is no possible way that I could ever do that. I mean, I could build up a certain amount of competency with drawing so that you could recognize that what I drew was meant to be a horse, right? But the people who … you look at the picture that they draw of a horse and not only is it obviously a horse, but it is obviously more than that, that it evokes an emotional response that would be different than just a simple picture of a horse. And how did they do that? And they can tell you how they do the craft of it, and they can tell you which pencils they use, and they can tell you about all the time that they spent practicing it, because nothing is achieved without practice, but fundamentally, you know, a lot of it just comes down to you can do that because your brain is wired that way. And it’s not to discount all the effort, it’s not to discount all the individual aspects of their creativity, but there is something going on that is just native to them. Just like with me with writing, or a musician with their ability to play a particular instrument, or to create melody. Some of that is ineffable. Some of that is indefinable. It’s not magical, it’s not necessarily purely spiritual, but it is something that you can’t bottle. Work and practice and effort will take you 80-90% of the way to where you need to be, and indeed, sometimes it will be enough for you to make a career. But that extra 10%, that extra 5%, that extra 1% that is the spark is something that I think is just part of your brain. And you can’t explain it anymore than you can explain why you have brown eyes, or why you re left handed or right handed, or why you’re straight or gay. It’s just part of who you are and it’s part of what informs who you are as a person. Kelton Reid: Yeah, yeah. John Scalzi: I’m sorry, I monologue. I don’t know if you knew that when you- Kelton Reid: I love it, I love it. It’s great, it’s great. There’s so many good pieces of wisdom in there for writers and I’m sure I could keep you on here all day long, but I won’t do that to you. John Scalzi: Okay. How Luck and Persistence Can Play a Part in Your Success as a Writer Kelton Reid: But you know, you’ve been compared to some great writers throughout your career. What do you think … what makes a writer great, as opposed to average? John Scalzi: Some of it is luck. Some of it is being in the right place at the right time. One of the things that I always tell people is if Old Man’s War had been published in 2004 or 2006 instead of 2005, that people might not have responded to it the way that they did, and that my career would be different. Some of it is natural talent that people are able to arrange sentences in ways that evoke an emotional response, or that they are able to say things that need to be said at a particular time and place. Some of it is sheer cussedness, the absolute refusal to go away or accept defeat or to look at failure as anything but a temporary thing. Having talked about the ineffable spark of creativity, one of the things that’s always dangerous about that is to minimize the simple fact that showing up is almost all of the game. There are people I know who are great writers, undisputably great writers, who are super talented, who I look at what they do and how they write and am in awe of it. And yet, they will never be known as one of the greats. And why is that? Part of that is because sometimes they don’t put in the effort, sometimes they don’t care, sometimes they are the victims of their particular circumstances. That makes it difficult for people to find the writing that could possibly change their lives. So much of what we do is persistence, of not only persistence and continuing to write and continuing to improve, but also the persistence of being there for people to see you, giving yourself as many bats as possible so you can get onto base or hit a homerun. But, ultimately, a lot of what makes a writer great is not up to the writer. A lot of it is up to forces that are entirely beyond their control. Like I said, sometimes you have to be lucky. You have to be in the right place at the right time with the right idea. I don’t call myself great, by the way. But like I said, with the example of Old Man’s War. It was in the right place at the right time. I won … Red Shirts, I won the Hugo Award. Would I have won that Hugo Award the year before or the year after? Who knows? There were completely different other books that were out at that time. But I got it, and it’s had a benefit to me. There are so many circumstances that help people achieve notability or fame or greatness that are entirely not up to them at all. Sometimes being great just means being one of the first people there to play that particular game. You look at some of the great video games or some of the great video game designers and they were doing things on Atari or in 8 bits that somebody today, a teenager would just bat out and not even think about. But they were there first, they were the people who created the games for the Atari 2600 that people literally played for hours and hours and hours and became part of their gestalt. And so, sometimes just being in the right place at the right time, it makes all the difference. Why You Really Only Need to Focus on the Things You Can Control John Scalzi: The one thing that I tell people about is, Don’t worry about greatness. Don’t worry about anything else but the things you can control. And the things you can control are your own writing. Are you happy with what you wrote? Are you happy with the way that it spoke to you before it spoke to anyone else? And it’s also important to remember that just because you don’t get fame or fortune or notoriety or whatever now, doesn’t mean that what you’re doing has no value either for yourself or simply for the fact that other people might find it. One of the greatest American poets is Emily Dickinson. I think she had maybe one poem published during her lifetime, and that was under a pseudonym. And yet, she is indisputably one of the great writers in the American canon. You can’t ignore the force of her work, or the beauty of her words. And she went through her entire life not knowing that we would think she was great. She never knew. She got all the way through it and kept all that stuff in a drawer. So you never do know. My expectation is that when I die, 20 years after I’m gone, people will still be reading me. 50 years? Maybe a couple people will remember me like they remember E. E. Doc Smith or Olaf Stapledon. 100 years from now, somebody is going to be reading me because they need a thesis, and they’re desperate, and they’re like, “Oh, nobody’s done anything with this guy, let me do this.” And I’m perfectly okay with that, because right now I’m reaping some of the benefits of doing what I’m doing. People are enjoying what I’m writing. Sometimes people come to me and they say, “My dad and I read this book together and it was a thing that we bonded over, and we couldn’t bond over anything else before, so thank you.” You get some benefits now. And I’ll be dead, I won’t know whether my work will survive. But right now I’m getting that benefit. Other people who we can’t even name right now, 100, 200 years from now people will be like, “They cast a shadow over this particular age.” And we don’t even know who they are. I wish I was alive 200 years from now to find out who that person was and then go, “Hey, I wrote some stuff back then too.” And they’d be like, “That’s nice.” But so don’t worry about greatness. Worry about writing stuff that matters to you and that you think will matter to others if you want to enjoy others in that sphere. What greatness is will take care of itself. But what you can influence is what you put onto the page. So take care of the stuff you can take care of. And don’t worry about the rest of it. Kelton Reid: I love that. I think that’s some great advice for your fellow scribes. And probably a good place to wrap up so I don’t keep you over an hour. I did want to ask you one fun one. If you had to choose one author from any era for an all expense paid dinner to your favorite spot, your favorite restaurant, who would you take and where would you take them? John Scalzi: Wow. I … it’s a super stereotypical thing. No, I changed my mind. I want to take Mary Shelley to dinner, because I want to tell her that she was foundational to an entire genre and I want to see how she handles that, you know? Because, I think it would be interesting. Because, how often do you get to say to someone not even Shakespeare. Shakespeare was writing plays, but people had been writing plays before that. But you can point to things that were sort of science fictional before Frankenstein. But in terms of influence, in terms of something that you look at and you’re like, “There’s no doubt this is science fiction.” Not only science fiction, but also horror and psychological thriller. That this is the place where all those things branch off of. That she is our Lucy, she is our Eve for those of us who toil in genre in many ways. And she was 19 years old. So I would love to have lunch with her, or dinner with her, and then take her to a bookstore. So I think we would go to a bookstore café. And it’s sort of like, You wouldn’t take Mary Shelley to a nice diner? If Mary Shelley is who I think she is, she would want a muffin while she looked through the racks and saw what became of the thing that she gave birth to in her brain. So as far as that goes, I think she is the person that I would want to have a meal with. And I would take her to a bookstore café and then be there for the rest of the afternoon, while she was looking through the shelves. Kelton Reid: I love it. Good images there. John, thanks so much for stopping by the show to enlighten us with some of your great writerly wisdom. The new book by John Scalzi, The Collapsing Empire, an interstellar epic. It’s hard to wrap up in a few words, but it is out now. You are on tour. Listeners can connect with you out there. Thank you so much for popping in and rapping with us. Thanks so much for joining me for this half of a tour through the writer’s process. If you enjoy The Writer Files podcast, please subscribe to the show and leave us a rating or a review on iTunes to help other writers find us. For more episodes, or to just leave a comment or a question, you can drop by WriterFiles.FM and you can always chat with me on Twitter @KeltonReid. Cheers. Talk to you next week.

El Hacedor de Estrellas, publicada en 1937 por Olaf Stapledon no es una novela uso. Es por un lado ensayo filosófico y por otro novela de ficción. El hilo argumental es el tiempo cósmico y recorreremos en un viaje las edades de éste hasta conocer al Hacedor de Estrellas. Notas: Podéis encontral el libro en 8 audios separados (mejor calidad). Índice cronométrico más abajo Esta novela es considerada un clásico y Olaf uno de los padres de la ciencia ficción. Algunas páginas abundan en la descripción y se nota que el lenguaje es más arcaico o las descripciones más ingenuas de lo que estamos acostumbrados. Por eso hay que saber situarla en la época que fue publicada: al final del período de entreguerras y antes de la venida del átomo y la explosión de la ciencia ficción. Muchos de los conceptos planteados son precursores de lo que leemos hoy. Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, los más grandes autores han reconocido la influencia que Stapledon ha tenido en sus obras junto con otros autores como Wells. Además, hay que entender también el contexto filosófico y la situación geopolítica de la europa de preguerra para apreciar el trabajo de Stapledon ya que la novela se sostiene por su invitación a la reflexión, a hacernos cuestionar asuntos sobre la existencia misma (y ello con una ambición realmente cósmica) más que por la acción. Sin embargo, aunque lento, también pasan cosas, y tiene mucho de ciencia ficción. Se plantea indirectamente la paradoja de Fermi (o ¿dónde está todo el mundo? Enrico Fermi 1950), la existencia de civilizaciones de tipo II y III, el uso de esferas Dyson (Freeman Dyson 1967), ingeniería genética, ecología, clonación, razas simbióticas, nebulosas inteligentes... Pensándolo ahora, me parece una barbaridad, y a pesar de no ser una novela ligera (+300 hojas) hay que respetar y querer a Olaf por darnos todos estos conceptos y por su ambición, tan humanista y propia de su época a la hora de pensar en nosotros: humanitos. Yo diría que pertenece al género cósmico =^__^=. Está estructurada de tal manera que los capítulos impares son más largos y están normalmente compuestos de varias partes mientras que los capítulos pares suelen ser cortos y sirven para una transición y reposar ideas. (esto a excepción del principio) “Cuando siento una necesidad de religión, salgo de noche y pinto las estrellas. Así como tomamos el tren para llegar a Tarascón o Rouen, sólo podemos tomar la muerte para llegar a ellas, pero muertos ya no podemos coger el tren” (parafraseando una cita de V. van Gogh) Ilustración: Bruce Bodden --- Índice --- 0.1 - 0:00:20 - Nota Preliminar. 0.2 - 0:05:20 - Prefacio. 1 - 0:12:50 - Capítulo 1: La Tierra. 1.1 - 0:12:50 - Parte 1º: El punto de partida. 1.2 - 0:22:20 - Parte 2º: La Tierra entre las estrellas. 2 - 0:32:40 - Capítulo 2: Viaje Interestelar 3 - 0:58:30 - Capítulo 3: La Otra Tierra. 3.1 - 0:58:30 - Parte 1º: En la Otra Tierra. 3.2 - 1:09:30 - Parte 2º: Un mundo ocupado. 3.3 - 1:41:10 - Parte 3º: Perspectivas de la raza. 4 - 2:08:30 - Capítulo 4: Viajo otra vez. 5 - 2:29:15 - Capítulo 5: Mundos Innumerables. 5.1 - 2:29:15 - Parte 1º: La diversidad de mundos. 5.2 - 2:45:00 - Parte 2º: Humanidades raras. 5.3 - 3:06:40 - Parte 3º: Nautiloides. 6 - 3:22:05 - Capítulo 6: Signos del Hacedor de Estrellas. 7 - 3:36:10 - Capítulo 7: Más mundos. 7.1 - 3:36:10 - Parte 1º: Una raza simbiótica. 7.2 - 4:01:30 - Parte 2º: Seres compuestos. 7.3 - 4:19:30 - Parte 3º: Hombres-plantas y otros. 8 - 4:43:30 - Capítulo 8: De los exploradores. 9 - 4:55:10 - Capítulo 9: La comunidad de mundos. 9.1 - 4:55:10 - Parte 1º: Atareadas utopías. 9.2 - 5:14:10 - Parte 2º: Lucha intermundana. 9.3 - 5:40:30 - Parte 3º: Crisis en la historia de la galaxia. 9.4 - 5:47:10 - Parte 4º: Triunfo en una subgalaxia. 9.5 - 6:00:50 - Parte 5º: La tragedia de los pervertidos. 9.6 - 6:10:40 - Parte 6º: Una utopía galáctica. 10 - 6:21:10 - Capítulo 10: Una visión de la galaxia. 11 - 6:44:10 - Capítulo 11: Estrellas y gusanos. 11.1 - 6:44:10 - Parte 1º: Las numerosas galaxias. 11.2 - 6:49:50 - Parte 2º: Desastre en nuestra galaxia. 11.3 - 7:02:10 - Parte 3º: Estrellas. 11.4 - 7:47:00 - Parte 4º: Simbiosis galáctica. 12 - 7:58:40 - Capítulo 12: Un espíritu cósmico incompleto. 13 - 8:05:30 - Capítulo 13: El comienzo y el fin. 13.1 - 8:05:30 - Parte 1º: Regreso a las nebulosas. 13.2 - 8:18:00 - Parte 2º: El momento supremo se acerca. 13.3 - 8:29:40 - Parte 3º: El momento supremo y después. 14 - 8:47:30 - Capítulo 14: El mito de la Creación. 15 - 8:56:30 - Capíutlo 15: 15.1 - 8:56:30 - Parte 1º: Creación inmatura. 15.2 - 9:23:30 - Parte 2º: Creación madura. 15.3 - 9:39:10 - Parte 3º: El Cosmos últimos y el espíritu eterno. 16 - 9:49:30 - Capítulo 16: De regreso. 10:03:10 - Una nota sobre magnitudes ------ /// soymescalito@gmail.com /// Errores de edición?? Sé que haylos, pero aún no he tenido oportunidad de escuchar el audio para eso. Lo he grabado pachangeramente y sé que hay algunas palabras que etán entrecortadas o puede quedar alguna repetición. Si encontráis algo y me lo queréis enviar os estaré muy agradecido. Podéis encontrar también el audio dividido en ocho partes para vuestra comodidad. Éste es el segundo libro que subo, el primero es Ciberíada, de Stanislaw Lem, una colección de fábulas espaciales super inteligentes y raras que os recomiendo desde aquí. PAZ!! =^__^= Audiolibro, cuento, relato, historia, cosmos, espacio, dios, viaje, astral, literatura, prosa, relatos, historias

El Hacedor de Estrellas, publicada en 1937 por Olaf Stapledon no es una novela uso. Es por un lado ensayo filosófico y por otro novela de ficción. El hilo argumental es el tiempo cósmico y recorreremos en un viaje las edades de éste hasta conocer al Hacedor de Estrellas. Notas: Podéis encontral el libro en 8 audios separados (mejor calidad). Índice cronométrico más abajo Esta novela es considerada un clásico y Olaf uno de los padres de la ciencia ficción. Algunas páginas abundan en la descripción y se nota que el lenguaje es más arcaico o las descripciones más ingenuas de lo que estamos acostumbrados. Por eso hay que saber situarla en la época que fue publicada: al final del período de entreguerras y antes de la venida del átomo y la explosión de la ciencia ficción. Muchos de los conceptos planteados son precursores de lo que leemos hoy. Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, los más grandes autores han reconocido la influencia que Stapledon ha tenido en sus obras junto con otros autores como Wells. Además, hay que entender también el contexto filosófico y la situación geopolítica de la europa de preguerra para apreciar el trabajo de Stapledon ya que la novela se sostiene por su invitación a la reflexión, a hacernos cuestionar asuntos sobre la existencia misma (y ello con una ambición realmente cósmica) más que por la acción. Sin embargo, aunque lento, también pasan cosas, y tiene mucho de ciencia ficción. Se plantea indirectamente la paradoja de Fermi (o ¿dónde está todo el mundo? Enrico Fermi 1950), la existencia de civilizaciones de tipo II y III, el uso de esferas Dyson (Freeman Dyson 1967), ingeniería genética, ecología, clonación, razas simbióticas, nebulosas inteligentes... Pensándolo ahora, me parece una barbaridad, y a pesar de no ser una novela ligera (+300 hojas) hay que respetar y querer a Olaf por darnos todos estos conceptos y por su ambición, tan humanista y propia de su época a la hora de pensar en nosotros: humanitos. Yo diría que pertenece al género cósmico =^__^=. Está estructurada de tal manera que los capítulos impares son más largos y están normalmente compuestos de varias partes mientras que los capítulos pares suelen ser cortos y sirven para una transición y reposar ideas. (esto a excepción del principio) “Cuando siento una necesidad de religión, salgo de noche y pinto las estrellas. Así como tomamos el tren para llegar a Tarascón o Rouen, sólo podemos tomar la muerte para llegar a ellas, pero muertos ya no podemos coger el tren” (parafraseando una cita de V. van Gogh) Ilustración: Bruce Bodden --- Índice --- 0.1 - 0:00:20 - Nota Preliminar. 0.2 - 0:05:20 - Prefacio. 1 - 0:12:50 - Capítulo 1: La Tierra. 1.1 - 0:12:50 - Parte 1º: El punto de partida. 1.2 - 0:22:20 - Parte 2º: La Tierra entre las estrellas. 2 - 0:32:40 - Capítulo 2: Viaje Interestelar 3 - 0:58:30 - Capítulo 3: La Otra Tierra. 3.1 - 0:58:30 - Parte 1º: En la Otra Tierra. 3.2 - 1:09:30 - Parte 2º: Un mundo ocupado. 3.3 - 1:41:10 - Parte 3º: Perspectivas de la raza. 4 - 2:08:30 - Capítulo 4: Viajo otra vez. 5 - 2:29:15 - Capítulo 5: Mundos Innumerables. 5.1 - 2:29:15 - Parte 1º: La diversidad de mundos. 5.2 - 2:45:00 - Parte 2º: Humanidades raras. 5.3 - 3:06:40 - Parte 3º: Nautiloides. 6 - 3:22:05 - Capítulo 6: Signos del Hacedor de Estrellas. 7 - 3:36:10 - Capítulo 7: Más mundos. 7.1 - 3:36:10 - Parte 1º: Una raza simbiótica. 7.2 - 4:01:30 - Parte 2º: Seres compuestos. 7.3 - 4:19:30 - Parte 3º: Hombres-plantas y otros. 8 - 4:43:30 - Capítulo 8: De los exploradores. 9 - 4:55:10 - Capítulo 9: La comunidad de mundos. 9.1 - 4:55:10 - Parte 1º: Atareadas utopías. 9.2 - 5:14:10 - Parte 2º: Lucha intermundana. 9.3 - 5:40:30 - Parte 3º: Crisis en la historia de la galaxia. 9.4 - 5:47:10 - Parte 4º: Triunfo en una subgalaxia. 9.5 - 6:00:50 - Parte 5º: La tragedia de los pervertidos. 9.6 - 6:10:40 - Parte 6º: Una utopía galáctica. 10 - 6:21:10 - Capítulo 10: Una visión de la galaxia. 11 - 6:44:10 - Capítulo 11: Estrellas y gusanos. 11.1 - 6:44:10 - Parte 1º: Las numerosas galaxias. 11.2 - 6:49:50 - Parte 2º: Desastre en nuestra galaxia. 11.3 - 7:02:10 - Parte 3º: Estrellas. 11.4 - 7:47:00 - Parte 4º: Simbiosis galáctica. 12 - 7:58:40 - Capítulo 12: Un espíritu cósmico incompleto. 13 - 8:05:30 - Capítulo 13: El comienzo y el fin. 13.1 - 8:05:30 - Parte 1º: Regreso a las nebulosas. 13.2 - 8:18:00 - Parte 2º: El momento supremo se acerca. 13.3 - 8:29:40 - Parte 3º: El momento supremo y después. 14 - 8:47:30 - Capítulo 14: El mito de la Creación. 15 - 8:56:30 - Capíutlo 15: 15.1 - 8:56:30 - Parte 1º: Creación inmatura. 15.2 - 9:23:30 - Parte 2º: Creación madura. 15.3 - 9:39:10 - Parte 3º: El Cosmos últimos y el espíritu eterno. 16 - 9:49:30 - Capítulo 16: De regreso. 10:03:10 - Una nota sobre magnitudes ------ /// soymescalito@gmail.com /// Errores de edición?? Sé que haylos, pero aún no he tenido oportunidad de escuchar el audio para eso. Lo he grabado pachangeramente y sé que hay algunas palabras que etán entrecortadas o puede quedar alguna repetición. Si encontráis algo y me lo queréis enviar os estaré muy agradecido. Podéis encontrar también el audio dividido en ocho partes para vuestra comodidad. Éste es el segundo libro que subo, el primero es Ciberíada, de Stanislaw Lem, una colección de fábulas espaciales super inteligentes y raras que os recomiendo desde aquí. PAZ!! =^__^= Audiolibro, cuento, relato, historia, cosmos, espacio, dios, viaje, astral, literatura, prosa, relatos, historias

Nos encontramos con un libro sorprendente: "Juan Raro" del inglés Olaf Stapledon. Un texto de ciencia ficción que, como todos los buenos libros de ese género, nos hará pensar en los límites de lo humano y el mundo que construimos. Un libro para descubrir y recomendar guiará nuestra conversación

Guest speakers: Michael Garfield & Matt Pallamary PROGRAM NOTES: Today we only go back in time a short way, back to December 12, 2012 when Matt Pallmary and Michael Garfield took a break during their work on the stage production of Matt's novel, “Land Without Evil”, in Austin, Texas. In this wide ranging discussion between salon favorite, Matt Pallamary, and long time saloner, burner, artist, and musician, Michael Garfield, one of my favorite topics was Michael's very positive take on the long-term impact of the work of Terence McKenna, regardless of the fact that the Timewave theory had obviously been disproven. Michael is also a regular performer on the festival circuit, and his schedule may be found online at Michael Garfield.net Download MP3 PCs – Right click, select option Macs – Ctrl-Click, select option The Psychedelic Salon Magazine Degenerate Art: The Art And Culture Of Glass Pipes “Is Ecstasy the Key to Alleviating Autism Anxiety?” Horizons 2012: CHARLES S. GROB, M.D - “Why Psychedelics Matter” Videos from the Festival Circuit Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon

With Mark Lawson Animator Nick Park has adapted his most famous characters Wallace & Gromit for the small screen, the big screen, the BBC Proms and now the theme park. He invites Mark to take a turn on his new ride - the Thrill-O-Matic - as it opens at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. More from the Cultural Exchange project, in which 75 leading creative minds share their passion for a book, film, poem, piece of music or other work of art. Tonight Mohsin Hamid, author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, selects the groundbreaking sci-fi novel Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon. The 1937 book is a history of life in the universe, in which a human from England is transported out of his body and finds himself able to explore space and other planets. Considered by Arthur C Clarke as one of the finest science fiction books ever written, Star Maker also was loved by Winston Churchill and Virginia Woolf. Nicholas Hytner gives Othello a modern military setting, in a new staging starring Adrian Lester in the title role, with Rory Kinnear as Iago. Hermione Lee assesses whether this National Theatre production casts a fresh light on the play. ITV's latest sitcom, Vicious, features Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Derek Jacobi as an elderly gay couple, with Frances de la Tour as their best friend. Writer and critic Philip Hoare has watched it and discusses whether Vicious lives up to its name. Producer Ekene Akalawu.

Author Mohsin Hamid talks to Mark Lawson about a seminal work in the history of science fiction, Olaf Stapledon's epic Star Maker (1937), a book loved by Winston Churchill, Arthur C Clarke, and Virginia Woolf. Moshin's interview is accompanied by selected clips from the archive;Chris Lintott and music critic Neil McCormick discuss Stapledon's first novel, A reading from Star Maker. Plus Brian Stableford on the theme of evolution in British science fiction, Arthur C. Clarke on why Olaf Stapledon is his biggest literary influence, H. G. Wells and Orson Welles on the infamous 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast, Mohsin Hamid talks to James Naughtie about his bestselling novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Astronomer and Sky at Night presenter Chris Lintott and the Telegraph's Chief music critic Neil McCormick discuss their favourite books with Harriett Gilbert: 'Last and First Men' by Olaf Stapledon, 'A Patchwork Planet' by Anne Tyler and 'White' by Marie Darrieussecq.