Before anyone goes off on the usual Jedi propaganda rant, I'd like to point out that the whole damn Jedi order presided over a 5-millenium "republic" with zero innovation, and rather a lot of slavery. The Sith by contrast - an organization consisting of two people - pushed massive technological leaps in one generation. Of course the only ones you ( Read more... )

Having been back and forth on this issue a lot over the last few years, I've lost any confidence in the validity of the question as to where the self begins and ends. I can find no logically sound test that indicates whether individual identity under a given case is continuous or not. It seems to ultimately come down to a cultural semantic argument ( Read more... )

We're all down there, in the twisting depths. And we don't know who is pulling the strings but this entire ordeal is set up to see if we crack. Having solved the other challenges, the vending machine that is also the slide to the next stage implies some pretty horrible glass-and-filth things if we activate the slide "wrong" ...and some moderately ( Read more... )

I am grateful for the Cat. On Thursday, she arranged for her old chum to walk me through basic makeup. A week prior, she came with me for professional acting headshots in three genders. On Friday, following her advice, I took the day off and actually slept well. I will have to do more of this.

The following are steeped in dream-allegory. Usually to ( Read more... )

Prohibition is still going strong, and I'm setting up a party in a large rez dorm. A fire breaks out and Prof. Arturo is adjusting the remote. A girl breaks away from her mother and jumps through the vortex. "Corazon" her mother calls after her. The professor goes.

I guess it's my turn next. Jump. And land in the mean streets of another world.
The ( Read more... )

Up for a stroll 05:30 in the old industrial patch near Hastings where I used to live. Just near the big warehouses that double as music studios. I walk towards the sun rising over Grandview.

Lucid? Almost lucid?

A crowd of people run South, up the bicycle path. It's like a cross-section of Vancouver is out jogging this morning.

I turn North. Wow. ( Read more... )

Dreampt that I wrested the golden ring from Cersei after a scuffle. I spring the dragon from its cage and it is mine now.

Found someone else from Earth, who was peddling VCR parts as miraculous curosities

_____

A sentencing circle and a band leader accused of murder. They decide to test whether his community actually supports him.

Temporarily free, he ( Read more... )

Like TV: a sunny and rolling landscape, like widescreen California, where youth with magical secrets receive their elixirs. Each bottle strangely numbered to indicate its effects. I secretly quaff those of a fried, her numbers are 3-6-9. Drink this one and I look so young, I look how I feel when I play the larp character Emily the Science Nerd and ( Read more... )

 Want more social justice in your (science-)fiction? Itching to know how to write write about people of different abilities, religions, races, ages, sexual orientations and so on? Or how *not* to do it? There's a book for that!

It's called "Writing the Other" and it's *finally* available for PDF-purchase. It's by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward. See ( Read more... )

(I often dream about speculative fiction that has yet to be released.)

Soon enough sisters, the skies are dark and a bunch of nasty vampires are running the show. Living humans are food. They're not the only supernaturals about though.
( Read more... )