Steven Hoefer's PlanetShine Steven Hoefer

It has a been a long minute since that last episode, but there's a good reason! The name is changing, though the content will be the same. I talk briefly about what's going on. And I offer up some good reading to tide you over until the full episodes of next season arrive.
Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Rowanhorse Blackfish City by Sam Miller The Outside by Ada Hoffman The Gurkha and the Lord of Thursday by Saad Hossain Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach by Kelly Robson

Reader's Room pulls the most fascinating writing from speculative fiction, science, and technology. In this edition we look at how two stories can simultaneously be strikingly similar and completely different. We also have a roundup of interesting science and technology, N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth books, and Rosemary Kirstein The Steerswoman series.
Show links:
N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth series. Rosemary Kirstein The Steerswoman series. This year's Ig Nobel Winners and a roundup of the weird science. Implanted organs printed from a patent's own cells. Why we say 'Hello' when we answer the phone. and why we say 'automobile' instead of oleo locomotive. Suggestions, comments, or subscribe to the email newsletter at ReadSteven.com

Reader's Room pulls the most fascinating writing from speculative fiction, science, and technology. In this edition we talk about what happens when the wind goes out of your sails, speculative fiction from Fireside, the optimistic present from Future Crunch, and long-term thinking from The Long Now foundation. And we talk about my difficulty with naming things.
Show links:
Future Crunch Their newsletter subscription.. Good News links from past newsletters. Their Patreon. The Long Now Foundation List of seminars. (Available as podcasts and videos. Members can get better access.) The 10,000 year clock. The Interval (Their coffee shop and cocktail bar.) Fireside Magazine The grown selection of newly published books Their website which features their short fiction (after subscribers get it) Subscriptions If you think what they do is worth money. (It is.) Suggestions, comments, or subscribe to the newsletter at ReadSteven.com

Reader's Room pulls the most fascinating writing from speculative fiction, science, and technology. In this edition we talk about coming to terms with things, including glitter, Shakespeare, and loss.
Show links:
Margaret Atwood's Hag-Seed Which is part of the Hogarth Shakespeare collection. UK exam board fined$250,000 for confusing characters from Romeo and Juliet. Clark County inmates learning to engineer, produce, and play music. (Autoplay video warning. Sorry.) 10 minute documentary about a very unlikley soul album.YouTube Link. Here's one of their songs. Paper: The Surprising Creativity of Digital Evolution: A Collection of Anecdotes from the Evolutionary Computation and Artificial Life Research Communities PDF link Suggestions, comments, or subscribe to the newsletter at ReadSteven.com
 

Reader's Room pulls the most fascinating writing from speculative fiction, science, and technology. In this edition we talk about experience on a Japanese leisure island, the unhelpfulness of book blurbs, and Nick Harkaway’s The Gone Away World.
Show links:
Odaiba fortresses turned leisure island in Tokyo bay. Palette Town giant, eclectic collection of amusements. Mega Web. What happens when Toyota builds a theme park. The origin of the book blurb. Nick Harkaway's The Gone Away World. Linkdump: How writers mess with our brains. Facial recognition software finds 3000 lost kids in four days. Injecting memories into sea slugs. (Full original paper here.) Suggestions, comments, or subscribe to the newsletter at ReadSteven.com
 

Reader's Room covers the month's speculative fiction, science and technology. In this edition we talk about how to grow literature in the desert, the very real ways words can threaten life, as well as Kawamata Chiaki’s novel Death Sentences.
Show links:
Nevada's Black Mountain Institute The Believer magazine The Believer Festival BMI's City of Asylum program. Progenitor of Surrealism, André Breton The Surrealist game, Exquisite Corpse And the Twitter thread where I talk my way though an editing problem. (Warning: Several swear words.) Suggestions, comments, or subscribe to the newsletter at ReadSteven.com