Playground
I just finished the rough draft of a new novel.
Details to come, but I wanted you to be the first to know.
And now, a book I love that you might too:
Playground by Richard Powers is a strange and wonderful novel set (mostly) on a remote atoll in French Polynesia that follows the tangled lives of an environmental advocate, a sculptor, a tech entrepreneur, and a brilliant bookworm trying to escape the grinding poverty of Chicago’s South Side. The richly drawn characters drive the story, but what I love most about the book is that it’s a love letter to the ocean with prose that comes closer than anything else I’ve read to capturing what it feels like to, for example, dive a thriving coral reef. Surprisingly, it’s also one of the most thought-provoking things I’ve read about AI, immeasurably improved by the subtlety with which this particular theme is handled.
Things worth sharing:
I joined Quinten Farmer on Dan Shipper’s podcast to talk about the lessons we’re learning building Tolan—honestly, the scale and depth of user response to our cute little alien blows my mind.
When I write a novel, detailed outlines are seductive, but almost always prove counter-productive. Instead, I need to run with a rough idea of the story and then review chapters as a reader to feel out what's working, what's not working, and where to go next.
Nobel laureate François Jacob described evolution as a tinkerer, explaining that “novelties come from previously unseen association of old material. To create is to recombine.” Art works the same way. Creativity is remixing.
Annie Dillard, The Writing Life: “One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”
After selling out of a few titles, my cozy little internet bookstore now has all my books back in stock, and I just packaged and shipped a couple of complete collections. If you haven’t yet, get some!
Thanks for reading. We all find our next favorite book because someone we trust recommends it. So when you fall in love with a story, tell your friends. Culture is a collective project in which we all have a stake and a voice.
Best, Eliot
Eliot Peper is the author of Foundry, Reap3r, Veil, Breach, Borderless, Bandwidth, Neon Fever Dream, Cumulus, Exit Strategy, Power Play, and Version 1.0. He also works on special projects.
“This is the best kind of science fiction.”
-Kim Stanley Robinson on Veil