SF Diplomat

INTERVIEW - Matt Bielby on Mainstream SF Magazine Publishing

Since its launch in 1995, SFX magazine has come to be a major player in British genre.  Its large circulation and wide availability have allowed it to attract the kind of readers who might never have otherwise taken a direct interest in SF or fantasy.  In fact, one could even argue that the rehabilitation of British attitudes towards genre that has resulted in Doctor Who returning to our screens was down to the likes of SFX discovering that niche does not necessarily mean inaccessible.

The man responsible for launching SFX was Matt Bielby, who also launched such titles as Total Film, PC Gamer, Amiga Power and the Official Playstation 2 Magazine.  Now he returns to genre with not only a new mainstream genre magazine named Death Ray but also a new publishing company all of his own.  Bielby’s return to genre comes at an interesting time as after twelve years of near complete domination, SFX has recently attracted competition in the shape of Imagine Publishing’s SciFiNow magazine.  At such an interesting time in British genre magazine publishing, I caught up with Matt Bielby to ask him a few questions about publishing and the state of British SF.

INTERVIEW - Charlie Stross on Geek Culture and The Future of SF (repost)

Since getting his first novel published in 2003, Charlie Stross has maintained a level of artistic output that would shame the pulp authors of the 1950’s let alone the average genre writer who struggles to put out a novel a year.  Given how prolific he is, you could be forgiven for expecting Charlie Stross to be pumping out Star Wars or Forgotten Realms novels.  However, rather than putting his talents to work for the forces of evil, Stross has instead produced some of the most critically acclaimed SF of the last few years, a fact confirmed by his four consecutive Hugo nominations for best novel.

Though clearly comfortable in sub-genres as diverse as space opera (Singularity Sky) and contemporary fantasy (The Jennifer Morgue), Stross’ work has come to be characterised by a marked interest in the kind of political issues that keep websites such as BoingBoing and Digg in business.  In fact, Stross has even argued that the online geek community are the natural constituency of SF.

In this interview I tries to get to grips with Stross’ feelings about the current state of SF as well as where it is headed.  We also ask him about his politics and whether there’s a danger in explicitly pandering to online geeks and a few other things besides.

This interview originally appeared in Scalpel Magazine.  When it did a number of people took issue with my attitude towards tie-in novels and some of the factual statements I make but rather than airbrush these issues from history I’m happy to stand by my views on both tie-ins and whether or not the Atrocity Archives is a novel.  Anyway, I’ve deleted the original link on here so anyone who linked either to my link or to the Scalpel page should probably re-link to here.

INTERVIEW - Peter Watts on consciousness, first person narratives and how the future belongs to sociopaths

The single best thing about following a scene, any scene, closely is being in a position to uncover a diamond in the rough.  These days the dark arts of the PR man are so sophisticated that it is easy to forget how it feels to uncover something great simply because other people with the same tastes as you are talking about it.

Peter Watts' Blindsight is a novel that brought this simple truth home to me.  Launched at the end of 2006 by Tor with little fanfare or publicity, Blindsight immediately started generating a buzz from SF authors and critics.  When 2006 ended, the novel unsurprisingly found its way onto a number of "Best of the Year" lists.  Being a Johnny-come-lately sort, I decided to invest in the book and it prompted me to write one of the most positive reviews that I've ever produced.

Wanting to learn more about the man as well as the ideas behind the book, I tracked down Peter Watts and asked him a few questions about consciousness, first person narratives and how the future belongs to psychopaths.

INTERVIEW - Nick Bostrom on the future, transhumanism and the end of the world

For most people, the idea of altering human cognitive and physical capacities so as to improve the fundamental character of the human condition is nothing more than science fiction.  Indeed, it's difficult to find a contemporary work of science fiction that does not engage with the ideas of transhumanism whether it is in the shape of cybernetic implants or genetic engineering or even the singularity.

However, far from being the preserve of science fiction writers such as Charles Stross, Cory Doctorow or Vernor Vinge, the ideas of transhumanism have enough academic and political weight to them to lead Francis Fukuyama to declare transhumanism the greatest threat to the future of humanity.

In order to find out more about the realities of the transhumanist movement, SF Diplomat sought out Nick Bostrom to ask him about transhumanism, the end of the world and the future of academic research.