3 book recommendations from Eliot Peper
A few hours ago I approved the final audiobook files for my forthcoming novel, Veil, and submitted them to Audible. Jennifer O'Donnell and Brick Shop Audio did a fantastic job bringing the story to life, and I can't wait to get the novel into your hands and/or the audiobook into your earbuds! For more about Veil, listen to my interview with John Biggs about the creative process behind the book and the promises and perils of geoengineering.
Veil is available for preorder on Kindle and will launch in all formats on May 20th. Reviewers/media, email me to read an advance review copy or schedule interviews.
And now, books I love that you might too:
The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow is a no holds barred adventure full of heart and imagination in which a young girl discovers magic doors that lead to other worlds and must learn to harness her power to write changes into reality itself in order to untangle the secret history of her own origins. This is Indiana Jones meets Narnia, but smarter, subtler, and more culturally informed. Complement with my conversation with Alix about the creative process behind the book.
Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl is a concise, powerful memoir detailing the life lessons the author learned from surviving the Nazi concentration camps. Even in his darkest moments, Frankl manages to distill profound truths of the human mind, heart, and spirit that will lend you courage in these strange times.
The Lives of a Cell by Lewis Thomas illuminates what biological science is revealing about the world with prose as beautiful, precise, and suggestive as the wonders it describes. By weaving together insights gleaned from termite mounds, human language, cell microbiology, ecology, medicine, natural history, epidemiology, and evolution, this slim volume kindles awe at the strange and miraculous universe in which we find ourselves.
Bonus recommendation: Fever Dream is a beautifully written and designed anthology of speculative short stories that grapples with what life might be like after COVID-19.
In other news:
I went on the Technotopia podcast to talk about geoengineering, the future of climate change, and the inspirations behind my forthcoming novel, Veil.
Cultivating a sense of presence: "For me, writing fiction often boils down to cultivating a sense of presence, of being fully immersed in a scene, of stepping outside of self and into a character. It feels surprisingly similar to runner's high or meditation, only in this case thoughts are displaced by imagination."
I went on The Lisa Show to discuss how to overcome creative blocks and get yourself unstuck.
John McPhee on writing as selection: "You select what goes in and you decide what stays out. At base you have only one criterion: If something interests you, it goes in—if not, it stays out. That's a crude way to assess things, but it's all you've got."
On May 21st, I’ll be talking to Marija Gavrilov about writing fiction, extrapolating imaginary futures, and finding a sense of agency in a world spinning out of control. RSVP to join us.
The life lesson that Edward Snowden learned from Super Mario Bros.: "Life only scrolls in one direction, which is the direction of time, and no matter how far we might manage to go, that invisible wall will always be just behind us, cutting us off from the past, compelling us on into the unknown."
Phoebe Morris published a wonderful digital storybook to help kids make sense of COVID-19 and talk about it with their parents. Follow Felix as he overcomes his fear of the virus and learns what superpowers he has to help save the day. A couple years back, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to work with Phoebe on a piece of illustrated online fiction for adults, and I can't recommend her work highly enough.
Alix E. Harrow on opening doors to other worlds: "What makes adventure great is more about what isn’t on the page than what is—it’s ships sailing toward unknown horizons, horses galloping into sunsets, the promise of something even grander and stranger off the margins of the map, unwritten."
Andy Matuschak and Michael Nielsen on the possibility space for quantum computing: "For the most part the way we understand quantum computing today is at an ENIAC-like level, looking at the nuts-and-bolts of qubits and logic gates and linear algebra, and wondering what the higher-level understanding may be."
Ursula K. Le Guin on the book as technology: "It doesn’t have to be plugged in, activated, or performed by a machine; all it needs is light, a human eye, and a human mind."
I just hit 20k words in the rough draft of a new novel.
Yesterday, I spoke to a large group of students at San Francisco State University. If you're an educator who uses my novels in your curriculum, I’m happy to join for a discussion via Zoom. Simply reply to this email and we’ll get it scheduled.
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.
"Real and urgent... a thoughtful meditation on the ethics of power among those who broker it. Peper manages a great deal of complexity without sacrificing clarity or pace, and I read it all in a single fascinated sitting."
-The New York Times Book Review on Bandwidth
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