First a definition for this question, because there are many kinds of sci-fi out there and they sometimes liberally use cool sounding words without explaining them:

A disruptor is a kind of weapon that weakens, or "disrupts", either material bonds (breaking a material into molecules), molecular bonds (breaking a molecule into atoms), or atomic bonds (breaking an atomic nucleus into protons, netrons, and free electrons. Almost like instantly turning into plasma).

Temperature can do these things, but the idea behind a disruptor, specifically, is that it happens through some kind of catalyst, rather than brute-forcing with insane amounts of heat.

Would such a weapon physically be possible (even if we don't know how to make them just yet)?

How would a target realistically behave when hit by a disruptor?

Using a vinyl cutter and mini-sand blaster I made some alternate universe corporate schwag! I like the idea that someone might have swiped these during an interview before both companies had their 'accidents.'

I just finished part 1 and, well, I'm kinda disappointed. It's not bad, I think it's actually pretty solid, but compared to the book it's much worse in terms of story progression and characters. Some parts felt really rushed. I didn't expect it to be better than the book, but I still expected better adaptation considering that (at least as far as I know) it was well received and I knew that it didn't adapt whole book so I expected it to don't skip too much. Is part 2 any better?

I'm sure many of you know this one, but some of you may not, and the rest could always hear it again. Story itself is by Terry Bisson.

Apologies for the slightly off-topic post...

It's not looking good, folks...

George R R Martin confirms he hasn't written anything for the 2 remaining A Song Of Ice And Fire books since 2022.

He wishes that they were finished.

The last published book in the series, A Dance With Dragons, was published in July 2011, now 13 years ago.

Obligatory song that's now 12 years old... https://youtu.be/j7lp3RhzfgI

Finished reading the Remembrance of Earth's Past series (i.e. The Three-Body Problem and the other books) and have opinions. WARNING: SPOILERS

Overall I liked it a lot. I felt like the books could've been a lot tighter though, and Liu Cixin really needed an editor. Lots of cool ideas, but I did not care about the 3 old guys arguing with each other in the first part of the second book. It gave some background info, but that could've been collapsed into a few paragraphs. I also didn't need the whole backstory of some some ship's cook whose plot relevance was about 10 seconds long.

I didn't have my mind blown by the ideas in it. Not that I begrudge people that do, I'm just not lying awake worrying about the dark forest hypothesis. Maybe it's because there's not much we can do about it anyways 🤷. I did really like the recasting of string theory's 11 dimensions as not some beautiful reality of the universe, but as the result of brutal galactic warfare.

I thought the FTL communication was kind of weird for a series that mostly tried to stick to (or at least give lip service to) hard sci-fi. If you haven't seen it before, this is a good explainer of the problems with FTL communication: https://projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/fasterlight.php. In the end, I think it more wants to be cosmic horror than hard sci-fi, which is fine.

One minor nit I have is that at the very end they talk a big deal about making messages last for billions of years, and they arrive at carving messages into stone. Good idea, but even then the message got partially lost. Why not add redundancy and carve it multiple times? I also kind of expecting something "clever", like writing the message into the genes of the mobile trees or something.

Like this is hitting me real hard. I can feel the sadness and the fight. They're good boys and and don't deserve what's coming down. They have some good religion. I'd like to be like these men. We fight for the ones we love.

Pretty amazing considering the 2023 fiasco.

Short interview: Wole Talabi

WOLE TALABI is an engineer, writer, and editor from Nigeria. He is the author of the nebula and BSFA award nominated novel SHIGIDI AND THE BRASS HEAD OF OBALUFON (DAW books/Gollancz) one of the Washington Posts Top 10 Science fiction and fantasy books of 2023. His short fiction has appeared in places like Asimov’s Science Fiction, Lightspeed Magazine, Africa Risen and is collected in the books CONVERGENCE PROBLEMS (DAW books, 2024) and INCOMPLETE SOLUTIONS (Luna Press, 2019). He has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, BSFA and Locus awards, as well as the Caine Prize for African Writing. He has won the Nommo award for African speculative fiction and the Sidewise award for Alternate History. He has edited five anthologies including the acclaimed AFRICANFUTURISM: AN ANTHOLOGY (Brittlepaper, 2020) and MOTHERSOUND: THE SAUÚTIVERSE ANTHOLOGY (Android Press, 2023). He likes scuba diving, elegant equations, and oddly shaped things. He currently lives and works in Australia. Find him at wtalabi.wordpress.com and at @wtalabi on Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky and Tiktok.

1) According to you and apart from the number of words, what is the main difference between a short story and a novel?

I think a short story is primarily asking one question or exploring one idea or illustrating one theme and as such it has just enough of what it needs (character, plot, etc.) to execute that effectively. A novel may have multiple ideas or questions or concepts, or even if it has on one main one, it will typically have others that it touches on, in service of that larger, main idea of theme and it carries as much as it needs to explore them fully.

2) What's your favorite short story?

The impossible question. There are far too many to list. So instead I'll just mention three stories I love. The ones that come to mind first right now. Those would be Exhalation by Ted Chiang, Spider The Artist by Nnedi Okorafor, and A Walk In The Sun by Geoffrey Landis.

3) What's your favorite short story written by you?

The second impossible question. This is like asking a parent to choose a favorite child. So instead I'll change the question to one that's different but has the same spirit. Which 3 of my short stories do I feel illustrate my writing the most? I'd say:

1. When We Dream We Are Our God
2. A Dream Of Electric Mothers
3. The Regression Test

4) How does your African heritage influence your science fiction writing?

Well I grew up in Nigeria which is a fascinating place. The blend of languages, cultures, philosophies, religions, beliefs, economics and so much more all existing side by side is dizzying. And the modern country, especially in large urban centres like Lagos, full of young, eager people, tends to have a chaotic energy that’s hard to describe, something I try to capture in most of my fiction. I am also more specifically ethnically Yoruba and Yoruba culture has an intricate traditional belief system that includes a rich pantheon, complex philosophies and technologies, intricate rituals and so much more. While I grew up urban and Christian, I have always found Yoruba traditional belief and history fascinating and complex, and I try to incorporate as much of it as I can in my work right beside any scientific and technological development, I envision using my engineering interests. Sometimes I build my imagined future technology on a scaffold of Yoruba spiritual beliefs. This is because as much as I consider myself a "logical and scientific minded" person, I grew up in Nigeria where often the physical and spiritual are presented side by side seamlessly with no separation. In addition, I also acknowledge the vastness of what is not yet known in the universe and all the different ways in which people have filled those gaps. It is in the spaces between our knowledge or in the ambiguity of our perceptions that I try to fit the spiritual elements of my stories. Humans have had magical and spiritual beliefs since we formed societies and I believe we will continue to do so, therefore the blending of both seems natural to me, even when speculating about the future. So readers shouldn't be surprised to find some almost mystic-leaning elements in my science fiction, even in my so called "hard-SF" stories.

5) What themes or issues specific to Africa do you explore in your science fiction?

I'm particularly interested in application of the often ignored traditional African philosophies and sociocultural practices as frameworks for thinking about the future of humanity.

6) What are you currently working on?

l have two short stories coming later this year. One called “Encore” - a sequel to the first story in my collection CONVERGENCE PROBLEMS. Its about an AI-artist set 3 million years in the future and is one of my favorite stories I have ever written. It will appear in Deep Dream: Science Fiction Exploring the Future of Art, edited by Indrapramit Das, from MIT Press in October 2024.

Also in October, I have a horror-fantasy story coming from Subterranean Press called “Unquiet On The Eastern Front” which takes place across Africa during World War II as a British soldier comes face to face with the horrors of colonization, war, his own family legacy, and a stalking, terrifying creature. It will be available to read for free.

I'm also working on my second novel – a science fiction novel which is simultaneously a near-future thriller and a meditation on the nature of memory, legacy, and connectedness featuring assassins, aliens, AI, ancestral memory, and a lot more. No publicly available title yet, but I’m excited to finish this story I’ve been mulling over for years.

#talabi #shortinterviews

Grab a copy of Wole Talabi's latest short fiction collection.

As you may have read earlier, I've taken a break. Today, I'm ready to relaunch SFSS in a new direction. I don't feel like publishing Western stories anymore, so I'm looking elsewhere.

I started with Vietnam, a country I'm particularly fond of (I spent the best year of my life there), but the SF scene there is almost non-existent and the few stories I've read aren't very good.

With the help of a Polish friend, the next few weeks will be devoted to finding good untranslated Polish stories.

Finally, if you yourself are fluent in an Eastern language and would like to collaborate with me, please don't hesitate to contact me: sfss_spacefrontier@protonmail.com

NB: any other suggestions/comments are welcome.

Sci fi inspired linocut print about brick of life, exobiology and cosmology.