Tag Archives: Near Future

Prodding and poking the possible

Events News Short stories No Comments

Biohacked & Begging is the second volume in the Nudge the Future series. These are collections of (very) short stories that dig around in our possible futures.

Some of the stories come from collaborations with scientists and others have flown around inside my head all alone before making their way out and on to the page.

Most of the collaborations have come through a project with Dr. Christine Aicardi, who is a Senior Research Fellow from King’s College London. Among other things, her project is looking at: “How good can near-future fiction be at provoking ethical and social reflection on emerging science and technology?” Continue reading →

It’s here…

Anthologies News No Comments

Following on from my last post, a few things I’ve been working on are taking shape. The eagle-eyed among you will have spotted the new covers are here, and I’m loving them.

Also, the publication of the first volume of near-future fiction from Virtual Futures has arrived. I’m one of the editors along with Dan O’Hara and Tom Ward and although it’s taken a while to come to fruition the results are worth it.  It’s a fantastic volume of eighteen stories from the 2017 series of fiction events, including The Never-Ending Nanobot Nectar from me. As the back cover blurb says, “When tomorrow has become a question mark — filled with as much malice as promise — can science fiction be a means of exploring the answer?”

You can pre-order the kindle version from Amazon up until the 5 March when it’s published, and that’s when the paperback version becomes available too (from all good book retailers).

I fully recommend it (but then I would, wouldn’t I).

Human Brain Organoids

Interesting tech Thoughts and speculation No Comments

In June this year I was invited to Oxford University by the International Neuroethics Society for a symposium on human brain organoids and other novel entities. As you can imagine it was a fascinating afternoon and another one of those moments when I felt as if science fiction could never be as strange as the real science itself.

There was talk of gastruloids, novel entities and chimeras. We discussed how to measure consciousness, the ethical valuation of moral status, developing a human brain inside an animal and that the closer we get to human brain surrogates the more pressing the ethical issues become.

You can read all about the symposium and watch some videos on the neuroethics society website.

Here’s a taster from the summary: Continue reading →