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Week 16

02.18.02

http://www.iranian.com/Experimental/2002/
February/Summer/index.html

This Iranian diarist with the nom de guerre of "Sarvenaz" must be some kinda gal.  Here she delivers a detailed, puff-by-puff description of hanging out with Teheran's decadent gilded set, smoking opium.

 

02.19.02

http://www.fecundswamp.net/~hatridge/
stamps/

This philatelist has brought some real edge to the stamp-collecting scene. He specializes in international stamps expressing fear and hatred of the USA.

 

02.20.02

http://www.gamerjargon.com/

Look here for "Fumonyms, a collection of terms from the Steam punk genre." Includes stirring wargamer coinages such as "Air Velocipede" and "Phlogiston Particle Projector."

 

02.21.02

Judith Berman has posted her essay on "Science Fiction Without the Future," probably the  most important piece of science fiction criticism in the last ten years.

http://home.earthlink.net/~judithberman/
fiction/sffuture.html

 

02.22.02

Thanks to an essay by Brian Aldiss, I discovered these incredible etchings of lunar adventure by an 18th century Florentine artist named Filippo Morghen.  Morghen drew them in 1766 to amuse a British diplomat, the guy who was the husband of Lord Nelson's mistress.

http://www.ukans.edu/~sma/morghen/
morghen.htm

http://www.ukans.edu/~sma/morghen/
prm134x.jpg

The thing that kills me about these "caprices" is their intensely pulp science-fictional sensibility. This one's got a classic "sword-and-planet" look and feel, straight out of an Edgar Rice Burroughs "Mars" novel.

http://www.ukans.edu/~sma/morghen/
prm135x.jpg

Some nifty sci-fi rubber physics here. Makes space travel a snap!

http://www.ukans.edu/~sma/morghen/
prm139x.jpg

Check out those Dr Seuss-ian moon gourds.

http://www.ukans.edu/~sma/morghen/
prm141x.jpg

Morghen's biography, what little there is of it.  Truly a lost spiritual ancestor.

http://www.ku.edu/~sma/morghen/
morgtxt.htm

Speaking of worthy spiritual ancestors, how's Brian Aldiss doing lately?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/
0,4273,4204853,00.html

 


Bruce Sterling is a science-fiction writer who lives in Texas. The sun is a G-type star out towards the edge of the Milky Way.

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