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The Holographic Self: Self-Representation and Logics of Digitality
THE HOLOGRAPHIC SELF: SELF-REPRESENTATION AND LOGICS OF DIGITALITY IN THREE CONTEMPORARY NARRATIVES OF COSMOPOLITANISM NAVNEET ALANG A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, CANADA DECEMBER 2015 © NAVNEET ALANG, DECEMBER 2015 ii Abstract This dissertation is an examination of the holographic self in three contemporary novels of cosmopolitanism. The holographic self is a concept I present which expands upon the cyborg to foreground a self that operates in relation to a “hologram”—a public-facing digital self-representation—or operates in the logic of such. In this project, I deploy two models of the holographic self: one in which the hologram functions as an interface for fantasy to move toward an actualization of an ego-ideal; and another in which the amalgam of holograms or instantiations of self form a rhizomatic or constellational arrangement of subjectivity in which movement itself is prioritized. In each of the focal novels—Gautam Malkani's Londonstani; Hari Kunzru's Transmission; Teju Cole's Open City—the protagonist functions as a holographic self in a manner that expresses a desire for a post-positionality subjectivity, where traditional notions of bodily or singular identity itself are exceeded. In chapter one I argue that in Londonstani, protagonist Jas seeks to produce a culturally hybrid self in which the virtual is used as a tool of self- actualization, as it ultimately prioritizes the bodily self reconfigured by its holographic dimensions. I compare the novel to Wilde's Portrait of Dorian Gray to suggest that text has no similarly phenomenal ground for an “outsourced self.” In chapter two, I assert that in Transmission, Arjun also operates in relation to a hologram of self, but the text's desire for Arjun to exceed identity itself expresses a yearning for a non-bodily notion of selfhood that seeks to escape the policing of identity. -
Valis Free Ebook
FREEVALIS EBOOK Philip K. Dick | 272 pages | 12 Jul 2001 | Orion Publishing Co | 9781857983395 | English | London, United Kingdom Valis (novel) - Wikipedia Dickit is one book of a three part series. The book features heavy auto-biographical elements, and draws inspiration from Dick's own religious experiences over the Valis decade. The planned third novel, The Valis in Daylighthad not yet taken definite shape Valis the time of the author's death. Pike and Valis, while Valis referencing VALIS directly, is thematically similar; Valis wrote: "the three do form a trilogy constellating around a basic theme. Dick experiences visions of a pink beam of light that he calls Zebra Valis interprets as a theophany exposing hidden facts about the reality of our universe, and a group of others join him in researching these matters. One of their theories is that there is some kind of alien Valis probe in orbit around Earth, and that it is aiding them in their quest; it also aided Valis United States in disclosing the Watergate scandal and the resignation of Richard Nixon in August, Kevin turns his friends on to a film called Valis that contains obvious references to revelations identical to those Valis Horselover Valis has experienced, including what appears to be time dysfunction. The film is itself a fictional account of an Valis version of Nixon "Ferris F. In seeking the film's makers, Kevin, Phil, Fat, and David—now calling themselves the Rhipidon Society—head to an estate owned by popular musician Valis Lampton and his wife Linda. They decide Valis goal that they have been led toward is Sophia Lampton, who is two-years old and the Messiah or incarnation of Holy Wisdom Pistis Sophia anticipated by some variants of Gnostic Christianity. -
A New Materialist Reading of Steampunk Materialities in William
Of Engines and Monsters: A New Materialist Reading of Steampunk Materialities in William Gibson and Bruce Sterling’s The Difference Engine and China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station by Zafeiroula Kavvadia A dissertation submitted to the Department of American Literature and Culture, School of English, Faculty of Philosophy of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. Aristotle University of Thessaloniki NOVEMBER 2017 Of Engines and Monsters: A New Materialist Reading of Steampunk Materialities in William Gibson and Bruce Sterling’s The Difference Engine and China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station by Zafeiroula Kavvadia Has Been Approved February 2018 APPROVED: Supervisor: Dr. Tatiani Rapatzikou Examiners: Dr. Domna Pastourmatzi Dr. Michail Kokkonis TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS …………………………………………………………………..... i ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………………………………… iii INTRODUCTION ……………………...…………………………………………………….…1 CHAPTER ONE: Ghosts and Machines: Material Objects, Technological Progress, and Human Primacy in William Gibson and Bruce Sterling’s The Difference Engine 1. An Alternative Steam-Revolution ………………………………………….... 20 1.1. Back To The Future: The Difference Engine and Steampunk Ideologies…………………………………………………………......… 23 1.2. Matter With a Vengeance: A New Materialist Reading of Objects and Settings ………………………………….……..…………….…..…..…. 28 CHAPTER TWO: “Half-Things and Neither-Nors”: Embodied Materiality, Difference, and Subjectivity in China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station 2. The Promises of Monstrous Flesh ………………………………………...…. 50 2.1. The Weird and the Weirder: China Miéville’s Tales of Darkness and Resistance ……………………………………………………..….…..… 52 2.2. “Dreamed up in bone and brick”: A New Materialist Reading of Embodied Matter ……………………………………………….…….… 56 CONCLUSION …………………………………………………………………………….…. 81 WORKS CITED ………………………………………………………………………...….… 87 Kavvadia i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis took much, much longer to complete than anticipated. -
Playscore, Networking: Gamers) Playscore Is a HypercorpSponsored Social Network for Major VR and AR Games and Gaming Culture
Optional Rule: prep (PlayScore, Networking: Gamers) PlayScore is a hypercorpsponsored social network for major VR and AR games and gaming culture. It features a combination of unified achievement tracking and player “karma” which is increased by teamwork, clean playing and interactivity, and penalizes cheating, TKing, ninjalooting or other similar activities. prep users have access to exclusive virtual chatrooms and forums, and the network hosts and distributes many guides, tips and interviews related to both single and multiplayer games. prep functions normally when using favors inside the virtual network, and can be used to gain favors from almost any faction, but the level of favor is increased by one when dealing with events completely in “meatspace”. Gamer Organizations & Clades: Virtualists: Virtualists hold that since VR is indistinguishable from Real Life, a “virtual” experience has no difference from a “real” one, and thus everyone should life freely in a virtual space. Virtualists spend almost all of their time playing VR games, and many have even sold off their own morphs in order to instance as infomorphs in specialized Virtualist Sanctuary servers. Casual players often find them “tryhards” or otherwise too serious about “games”, which the Virtualists treat like real experiences. Drones: Drones are mostly hypercorp employees or other “normal” Consortium citizens who partake in AR or VR games. They oppose open hypercorp interference and monitoring within the actual games, but also do not like attempts to impose seriousness or realism, or bring realworld politics into the simulspace. They simply want their escapism from their daily grind. -
Holographic Wormhole Drive: Philosophical Breakthrough in FTL 'Warp-Drive' Technology
Holographic Wormhole Drive: Philosophical Breakthrough in FTL 'Warp-Drive' Technology Richard L. Amoroso Noetic Advanced Studies Institute Beryl, UT USA [email protected] Skeptics say Faster than light (FTL) space travel is the stuff of Science Fiction, could take 1,000 years and require a Jupiter size mass-energy source to operate superluminal warp drive spaceships. The author solves this problem in a radical new approach called the “Holographic Wormhole Drive” resulting in the possibility of warpdrive technologies in the near term. The Alcubierre warp drive metric (considered most advanced ) derived from Einstein’s General Relativity field equations by Miguel Alcubierre, in 1994 stretches space in a wave. Space ahead of a ship contracts & space behind expands, inhabitants of the warp-bubble travel along what astrophysicists call a ‘freefall’ geodesic, not moving locally inside the bubble at FTL velocities. But this model requires a negative mass-energy the size of Jupiter to operate. Amoroso uses a new spacetime transformation to cover the domain wall of the warp bubble with an array of mini-wormholes allowing an incursive oscillator to manipulate Alcubierre’s alpha and beta functions with minimal external energy input, i.e. the inherent infinite energy of the spacetime vacuum is used instead by a method of ‘ballistic’ spacetime programming. In "The Immanent Implementation of FTL Warp-Drive Technologies", from his book "Orbiting the Moons of Pluto, Amoroso solves major problems facing the Alcubierre metric based on principles of Holographic Anthropic Cosmology from another volume: "The Holographic Anthropic Multiverse". His solution is a 'Holographic Figure-Ground Effect' where the 'local' free-fall Warp Bubble separates from the holographic background by covering the domain wall of the free-fall warp-bubble with a system of mini-wormholes by 'programming mirror symmetry parameters of the spacetime vacuum'. -
Three Film Adaptations of HG Wells's the Time Machine a Thesis Submitted to the Faculty
Prominent Social Anxieties Adapted: Three Film Adaptations of H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research For the Degree of Master of Arts In English University of Regina By Maxx Randell Regina, Saskatchewan July 2015 © M. Randell, 2015 UNIVERSITY OF REGINA FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES AND RESEARCH SUPERVISORY AND EXAMINING COMMITTEE Maxx Randell, candidate for the degree of Master of Arts in English, has presented a thesis titled, Prominent Social Anxieties Adapted: Three Film Adaptations of H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine, in an oral examination held on June 26, 2015. The following committee members have found the thesis acceptable in form and content, and that the candidate demonstrated satisfactory knowledge of the subject material. External Examiner: Dr. Philippe Mather, Department of Film Supervisor: *Dr. Nicholas Ruddick, Department of English Committee Member: Dr. Susan Johnston, Department of English Committee Member: Dr. Jes Battis, Department of English Chair of Defense: Dr. Leanne Groeneveld, Department of Theatre *Participated via Video Conference Abstract My thesis is concerned with three different film adaptation of H.G. Wells’s classic novella The Time Machine (1895). These adaptations are George Pal’s feature The Time Machine (1960), Henning Schellerup’s telefilm The Time Machine (1978), and Simon Wells’s Hollywood blockbuster The Time Machine (2002). There are certain elements in the source text that I identify as important that a film should engage with if it is likely to be considered an adaptation of The Time Machine. Absolute fidelity to the source text is not a requirement, I believe, to be an effective adaptation, but adaptations do need to respect the source text, especially an admired classic like The Time Machine. -
Nanotech Ideas in Science-Fiction-Literature
Nanotech Ideas in Science-Fiction-Literature Nanotech Ideas in Science-Fiction-Literature Text: Thomas Le Blanc Research: Svenja Partheil and Verena Knorpp Translation: Klaudia Seibel Phantastische Bibliothek Wetzlar Special thanks to the authors Karl-Ulrich Burgdorf and Friedhelm Schneidewind for the kind permission to publish and translate their two short stories Imprint Nanotech Ideas in Science-Fiction-Literature German original: Vol. 24 of the Hessen-Nanotech series by the Ministry of Economics, Energy, Transport and Regional Development, State of Hessen Compiled and written by Thomas Le Blanc Svenja Partheil, Verena Knorpp (research) Phantastische Bibliothek Wetzlar Turmstrasse 20 35578 Wetzlar, Germany Edited by Sebastian Hummel, Ulrike Niedner-Kalthoff (Ministry of Economics, Energy, Transport and Regional Development, State of Hessen) Dr. David Eckensberger, Nicole Holderbaum (Hessen Trade & Invest GmbH, Hessen-Nanotech) Editor For NANORA, the Nano Regions Alliance: Ministry of Economics, Energy, Transport and Regional Development, State of Hessen Kaiser-Friedrich-Ring 75 65185 Wiesbaden, Germany Phone: +49 (0) 611 815 2471 Fax: +49 (0) 611 815 49 2471 www.wirtschaft.hessen.de The editor is not responsible for the truthfulness, accuracy and completeness of this information nor for observing the individual rights of third parties. The views and opinions rendered herein do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editor. © Ministry of Economics, Energy, Transport and Regional Development, State of Hessen Kaiser-Friedrich-Ring 75 65185 Wiesbaden, Germany wirtschaft.hessen.de All rights reserved. No part of this brochure may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. -
Postmodern Orientalism. William Gibson, Cyberpunk and Japan
Copyright is owned by the Author of the thesis. Permission is given for a copy to be downloaded by an individual for the purpose of research and private study only. The thesis may not be reproduced elsewhere without the permission of the Author. POSTMODERN ORIENTALISM William Gibson, Cyberpunk and Japan A thesis presented in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand Leonard Patrick Sanders 2008 ABSTRACT Taking the works of William Gibson as its point of focus, this thesis considers cyberpunk’s expansion from an emphatically literary moment in the mid 1980s into a broader multimedia cultural phenomenon. It examines the representation of racial differences, and the formulation of global economic spaces and flows which structure the reception and production of cultural practices. These developments are construed in relation to ongoing debates around Japan’s identity and otherness in terms of both deviations from and congruities with the West (notably America). To account for these developments, this thesis adopts a theoretical framework informed by both postmodernism as the “cultural dominant” of late capitalism (Jameson), and orientalism, those discursive structures which produce the reified polarities of East versus West (Said). Cyberpunk thus exhibits the characteristics of an orientalised postmodernism, as it imagines a world in which multinational corporations characterised as Japanese zaibatsu control global economies, and the excess of accumulated garbage is figured in the trope of gomi. It is also postmodernised orientalism, in its nostalgic reconstruction of scenes from the residue of imperialism, its deployment of figures of “cross-ethnic representation” (Chow) like the Eurasian, and its expressions of a purely fantasmatic experience of the Orient, as in the evocation of cyberspace. -
6 Doi:10.1162/GREY a 00206 Rick Guidice. Painting Showing Interior
Rick Guidice. Painting showing interior view of cylindrical space colony, looking out through windows, ca. 1975. Courtesy NASA Ames Research Center. 6 doi:10.1162/GREY_a_00206 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GREY_a_00206 by guest on 28 September 2021 Earthlike FELICITY D. SCOTT In May 1975, Ludwig Glaeser, then curator of the Mies van der Rohe Archive at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), presented a paper entitled “Architectural Studies for a Space Habitat” at the Conference on Space Manufacturing Facilities (Space Colonies) jointly organized by Princeton University, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Trained as an architect and art historian in Berlin dur - ing the 1950s, Glaeser joined MoMA in 1963; he was appointed associate curator in 1964, curator of architecture in 1968, and head of the Mies archive in 1972. 1 Hailing from an institution avowedly committed to architecture’s aesthetic dimensions, Glaeser’s expertise might appear somewhat out of place at a conference dedicated to advancing the scientific, technical, and commercial aspects of space colonization. Glaeser in fact refused to offer an image of what a future space colony might look like or to make aesthetic arguments, and his presentation was received as unduly pessimistic and out of sync with the heroic space colony visions of Princeton physics professor Gerard K. O’Neill, around which the NASA-funded conference was organized. Yet, in retrospect, -
BLADE RUNNER: a Ficção Científica E a Ética Da Ciência Na Sociedade Líquido-Moderna
Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo PUC-SP Edilson Rodrigues Palhares BLADE RUNNER : a ficção científica e a ética da ciência na sociedade líquido-moderna MESTRADO EM CIÊNCIAS SOCIAIS São Paulo 2010 EDILSON RODRIGUES PALHARES BLADE RUNNER : a ficção científica e a ética da ciência na sociedade líquido-moderna Dissertação apresentada à Banca Examinadora da Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, como exigência parcial para obtenção do título de Mestre em Ciências Sociais, área de concentração Sociologia, sob orientação da Prof. a Doutora Marisa do Espírito Santo Borin. PUC-SP 2010 Banca Examinadora _______________________________ _______________________________ _______________________________ DEDICATÓRIA Dedico esta dissertação à memória do escritor de Ficção Científica Philip K. Dick, cuja obra representa uma grande ruptura neste gênero ao questionar a identidade humana em relação ao avanço tecnológico dos meios de produção material da vida. Ao diretor de cinema britânico Ridley Scott e sua equipe que há 28 anos transcodificou magistralmente um romance de Dick para as telas, criando Blade Runner , um filme que desde então se tornou parte inerente de minha vida. Aos fãs e leitores de Ficção Científica como um todo, e especificamente aos leitores de Philip K. Dick, H.G. Wells e Mary Shelley. E evidentemente, aos inúmeros admiradores do filme Blade Runner . À professora doutora Noêmia Lazzareschi, do Programa de Ciências Sociais da PUC-SP, cujas aulas tiveram o poder de fundamentar minha visão do mundo social e científico de uma forma muito mais consistente do que a que eu tinha antes. E principalmente, à minha amada esposa Angela Procópio, que em todos os momentos em que fraquejei e caí perto dela, não só auxiliou no meu reerguimento, como me ensinou a fazer isto por conta própria, caso não estivesse por perto. -
Cyberpunk Mark Bould
14 Cyberpunk Mark Bould Reflections on “Cyberpunk” The word “Cyberpunk” was coined by Bruce Bethke for the title of a story published in Amazing in 1983, but it came to prominence when Gardner Dozois appropriated it in his 1984 Washington Post article “SF in the Eighties” to describe fiction by William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Lewis Shiner, Pat Cadigan, and Greg Bear. The self- identified core Cyberpunk group consisted of Gibson, Sterling, Shiner, John Shirley, and Rudy Rucker. They were also dubbed the Movement, the “mirrorshades group” and the “outlaw technologists”; their fiction was sometimes called radical hard SF. As “Cyberpunk” circulated more widely following the success of Gibson’s debut novel Neuromancer (1984), it accreted fresh meanings and applications. To paraphrase Gibson’s famous dictum about human relationships with technology, the street (and the culture industries) found its own uses for “Cyberpunk.” It became an ever-expand- ing term for any slightly edgy artistic or cultural practice concerned with computers and/or the relationships between technology and the body, a synonym for “computer hacker,” the name of a role-playing game and even the title of a Billy Idol album. Although usually considered to refer to a movement, subgenre or an idiom, “Cyber- punk” was also an undeniably commercial label, attracting a lot of attention from readers, writers, journalists, critics, and marketing people. It spawned numerous derivative terms, including “cowpunk,” which described a revitalized western fiction (and had already been applied to the music of the Meat Puppets, whose name Gibson borrowed to describe prostitutes with neural blocks); “elfpunk,” which described post- Tolkien fantasy with attitude; and “ciderpunk,” a variety of pub rock from England’s West Country. -
Publisher Preview
Superluminary™™ A space opera toolkit for Other Worlds™ WRITTEN AND PRODUCED BY Mark Humphreys ILLUSTRATED BY Storn A. Cook EDITED BY Harriet Evans LAYOUT BY Ruben Smith-Zempel THANKS TO Blake Hutchins, Brian Isikoff, Fred Hicks, Justin D. Jacobson, Steve Jones, Paul Newland, Richard Green, Ben Reynolds, Ian Meachin, and Mike Holmes Techno-sorcery developed from an idea by Mike Holmes, used with permission. Copyright© and Trademark™ 2017 Mark Humphreys. All rights reserved. A Signal 13 production FAC 13 5299 Go to www.OtherWorldsRPG.wordpress.com for more! TMA-1 Table of Contents And So It Begins... 4 What Is Space Opera? 6 Crafting a Story 7 What’s in This Book 8 Scenes from a Space Opera, Episode IV: A Message to the Rebels 9 Big Bang Theory 10 What Is the Astrographical Scope of Your Campaign? 10 How Many Alien Races Are There? 12 What Does the Future Look Like? 13 How Does FTL Work? 14 What Other Conflict-Driving Supersciences Are There? 15 What Form Do Special Powers Take? 16 What Is the Team’s Focus? 16 Scenes from a Space Opera, Episode V: Hunter, Prey 17 Heroes of the Future 18 Homeworlds 19 Professions 29 Trademarks 39 Scenes from a Space Opera, Episode VI: Attack Run on Battle Station Copernicus 55 Aliens, Robots, and Other Strangeness 56 Alien Species Templates 56 Robot Chassis Templates 66 Virtual Minds 74 2 Scenes from a Space Opera, Episode I: Prisoners of the Slime People 75 The Weirding Way 76 Psionics 77 The Lifeforce 80 Techno-Sorcery 83 Scenes from a Space Opera, Episode II: Last Days on Volcanis Ultra 87 Brave New World 88 High Technology and Superscience 89 Trading and Commerce 94 Superscience and the Arms Race 96 Hovercars and Spaceships 99 Travelling the Spaceways 106 Bizarre Landscapes 112 Creature Feature 118 Supporting Characters 127 Factions 129 Scenes from a Space Opera, Episode III: Possible Kill Screen 135 Appendix: The Merovinthian Sector 136 Core Worlds 137 Other Factions 140 Index 142 3 1 And So It Begins..