Many a technologist has been impressed by science fiction. Some have even constructed, or rebuilt, total corporations round an thought launched in a narrative they learn, because the founders of Second Life and Meta did, working from the metaverse as imagined by Neal Stephenson in his seminal 1992 novel Snow Crash.
IEEE Spectrum has a historical past of operating superb sci-fi tales. Twenty years in the past, I labored with laptop scientist and novelist Vernor Vinge on his “Synthetic Serendipity,” a brief story he tailored from his novel Rainbows End only for publication in Spectrum. Vinge’s work is knowledgeable by his analysis and relationships with a few of the world’s main technologists, which in flip gave me loads of background for the accompanying 2004 Spectrum article “Mike Villas’s World.” Vinge’s story of the close to future explored then-nascent applied sciences, akin to 3D printing, augmented actuality, and superior search-engines, all of which Vinge depicts with beautiful readability and foresight.
So when our News Manager Margo Anderson and Contributing Editor Charles Q. Choi hatched the concept for the science fiction/reality bundle featured on this situation, our native sci-fi maven, Special Projects Editor Stephen Cass, eagerly volunteered to shepherd the challenge. Stephen is coauthor of Hollyweird Science: From Quantum Quirks to the Multiverse (on the science proven in films and TV exhibits) and the editor of a number of sci-fi anthologies, together with Coming Soon Enough, printed by Spectrum 10 years in the past.
Choi recommended we rent the futurist Karl Schroeder, writer of 10 sci-fi novels, to put in writing the sci-fi story. Cass, Choi, and Schroeder then had a brainstorming session. Cass remembers, “I knew by the end of it that Karl had the chops to nail the real science concepts we wanted to explore, and come up with a compelling narrative.”
The thought they stumble on—turning a planet into a pc—isn’t new in science fiction, Cass notes. But “we wanted Karl to explore the idea in a way that would shed light on what purpose you’d put one to,” he says, “and also think about what some of the unintended consequences might be. And he had to do it in 2,500 words, which is a very tight fit for a story.”
As for the accompanying nonfiction annotations, Choi’s transient was to work with Cass and Schroeder to be sure that the story, though fantastical and set within the far future, was sufficiently grounded in concepts that scientists and futurists are taking severely at the moment.
And in fact, any good sci-fi story wants some cool artwork. For that, Deputy Art Director Brandon Palacio selected Andrew Archer, whose work has a terrific stability of realism and stylistic aptitude. Historically, many science-fiction tales and books have had accompanying artwork that’s solely barely associated to what occurs within the textual content, however Archer labored with us to ensure his work actually match “Hijack”.
Deft storytelling is one thing Cass himself delivers on this month’s Hands On: “Vintage Hi-Fi Enters the 21st Century” [p. 16]. Not solely is he our in-house sci-fi skilled, he’s additionally our workers do-it-yourselfer. This month, he resurrects a classic hi-fi that got here from his spouse’s household. Inspired by the current passing of his father, who helped his personal father of their radio and tv rental store in Dublin earlier than spending many years working as a broadcast engineer, Cass wires up a story of household and connection via expertise that you simply’ll learn solely in these pages.
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