3 book recommendations from Eliot Peper
I wrote an essay about how government is a technology and what science fiction can teach us about the future of political institutions: "The Roman Empire, the Iroquois Confederacy, and the United States of America are human inventions as surely as airplanes, computers, and contraception are. Technology is how we do things, and political institutions are how we collaborate at scale."
You can read the full essay on my blog, and it also ran in TechCrunch.
And now, books I love that you might too:
American Gods by Neil Gaiman is an epic, sprawling adventure traversing the lonely interstates and dingy motels of a modern America in which ancient gods still hold sway—to the extent that they can convince people to keep believing in them. Clear-eyed to the best and worst of what the United States stands for, Gaiman weaves a comprehensive new mythology for a young nation.
On Writing by Stephen King is an insightful memoir on craft from one of the greatest storytellers of our time. Funny, personal, and thought-provoking, King delves deep into his creative process—unearthing many gems for aspiring and experienced writers alike.
A Brightness Long Ago by Guy Gavriel Kay is a character-driven tale of romance and intrigue set among the warring city-states of a fictional land inspired by Renaissance Italy. The cast is compelling and well-drawn, the plot twists in ways that would make Machiavelli grin devilishly, and Kay's gift with language transmutes prose into poetry. This is great story, beautifully told.
Bonus recommendation: Robin Sloan's "The Sleep Consultant" is my favorite short story of 2019. Fair warning: It may slip into your dreams.
In other news:
What I learned binging Russian Doll on Netflix: "Realism and suspension of disbelief seem like they should go hand in hand, but actually operate on independent axes. We don't believe in stories because technical footnotes justify every leap of faith. We believe in stories because the characters believe in them, and we believe in the characters."
I wrote a photo-essay for Thrive Global about life, death, and rainforests: "Dappled light on infinite green calls to mind a line from Neil Gaiman’s American Gods: 'Not only are there no happy endings, there aren’t even any endings.'"
Finding your voice: "Clarity is forging your imagination into a pebble that, when tossed, will ripple through other minds."
My conversation with Eva Hagberg, author of How To be Loved: "I had to find the heart of the story, which was really my transformation from someone who was loved but couldn’t feel it, into someone who could feel it. And once that became the central catharsis, everything else—eventually, with tremendous rewriting and editing—fell into place."
Simon Bisson on the Analog series: "Like the best futurist fiction, Peper’s Analog trilogy leaves you both satisfied and unsatisfied, content with a story that ends well, but asking questions about how we can go from our current informational wild west to something democratic, something we all have a say in, that’s for all of us and not solely built to generate shareholder value. These are big questions, and it’s good that the final pages of Breach leave us asking them."
If you enjoy this newsletter and want to support it, tell your friends. I love sharing amazing stories that explore the intersection of technology and culture. The goal of this newsletter is to recommend books, both fiction and nonfiction, that crackle and fizz with big ideas, keep us turning pages deep into the night, challenge our assumptions, help us find meaning in a changing world, and make us think, feel, and ask hard questions. In an age of digital abundance, quality is the new scarcity. The right book at the right time can change your life.
I also pull back the curtain on my creative process. When I'm not reading books, I'm writing them. If you're interested, you can find my books right here. They've earned praise from the New York Times Book Review, Businessweek, Popular Science, Boing Boing, TechCrunch, io9, and Ars Technica. I'd love to hear what you think if you give them a read.
Cheers, Eliot
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Eliot Peper is the author of Breach, Borderless, Bandwidth, Cumulus, Neon Fever Dream, True Blue, and the Uncommon Series. Subscribe to his blog here.
“An excellent near-future exploring issues of information, sovereignty, and climate change.”
-Malka Older, author of Infomocracy, on Breach
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