Dear reader, I have been remiss. I have not posted in my Random Thoughts series in almost seven months. I have been doing a lot of random thinking since then. And I have collected even more random funny images. So without further ado, enjoy this Super Sized and Super Random collection of my Random Thoughts!
I've been reading more dystopian stuff than usual lately, not just in the news, but because I'm currently teaching a class on Utopias and Dystopias. I'm also teaching my Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy class, and depending on who you ask, Plato's Republic is a utopia, dystopia, or both.
What's the point of utopias and dystopias? Utopias seem, well, utopian and unobtainable. And boring, but I think the "boring" label is more a result of lack of imagination than anything inherent to utopias. I think we'd still have plenty to keep us busy if everyone's basic needs were met--we could finally go about figuring out what this whole human experience is supposed to be. But I digress.
Dystopias are either never going to happen, or depending on where and when you look, have been or are already happening. Especially as I write this on Indigenous Peoples Day, I'm reminded of a comment from Indigenous creator Dale Deforest at a panel at Worldcon in August that a lot of Native Americans have been living in various states of dystopia for hundreds of years and still today (I'm hoping for a swift and effective response to a typhoon in Alaska that has affected mostly Indigenous people).
But I think the "could it happen?" question is the wrong question, or at least not the most interesting question to ask. (Not that this stopped me from asking this last week when I showed my students an episode of The Handmaid's Tale). Sure, dystopias might remind us that things could get worse, and utopias might remind us that we could do better, but I think they do something even deeper.
As Mary Midgley said in her essay "Practical Utopianism," utopias and dystopias show us possibilities, often quite exaggerated, of where we could go, roadmaps of roads we may never travel, all to change our sense of the terrain. And I'd like to think this type of story can also expand our sense of possibility as what Ursula Le Guin called "realists of a larger reality."
Exploring the terrain of dystopias and utopias helps us to explore what we think about ourselves, our societies, and more, to find the many utopias, dystopias, and somewheres in between.
Toward that end, here are my reviews of some of the terrain of utopias and dystopias that I've been exploring lately: Utopia by Thomas More, The Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish, We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, The Hunger Games by Susanne Collins, Divergent by Veronica Roth, and Authority by Jeff VanderMeer.
If you are ever stuck in a dystopia or an ambiguous utopia, dear reader, may the odds be ever in your favor!
I meant to post this in July, after posting Part 1, but my summer plans overtook me. So here I am posting Part 2 after both my full Hugo ballot, a post on my Worldcon talks, and my report on Worldcon. Oh, well.
Here are my reviews of Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Someone You Can Built a Nest In by John Wiswell, and The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. The last of these won this year's Hugo for Best Novel, which didn't bother me as I enjoyed the book, but it did somewhat surprise me: I found it enjoyable, but ultimately not as innovative or interesting as the others.
Anyway, I was getting close to the Hugo voting deadline when I wrote my original reviews on Goodreads, so I've expanded them just a bit here.
I've been home from Seattle Worlcon for a couple weeks now, but school starting immediately upon my return has kept me too busy to make a post about it. Until now! I'm happy to report that I had a great time!
Due to weather on Tuesday, my flight from Chattanooga to Chicago was canceled, and I had to rebook for the next day. I barely made it to my first panel in Seattle on Wednesday evening. I walked into the panel a few minutes late straight from the airport. Oh, and they lost my luggage in Chicago (I was reunited with it in Seattle several hours later).
Summer is almost over for me (school starts next week), but I have one more trip planned: I'm thrilled to be going to Seattle tomorrow to attend the 2025 Worldcon (World Science Fiction Convention)! Worldcon will take place at the Seattle Convention Center Aug. 13-17, 2025.
I will be on one panel Wednesday evening and giving one talk on Saturday afternoon, both in part through my role as President of the Science Fiction and Philosophy Society. Both are also in honor of my late friend and colleague Anand Vaidya, especially his work on artificial intelligence and moral standing. I'm hoping to someday teach a course on AI in science fiction and philosophy, so Worldcon will be a good step into that process.
My friend and cofounder of the Science Fiction and Philosophy Society, science fiction author Manjula Menon, will be on the first panel with me. She's also on a whole bunch of other panels, including one on "Artificial Honesty," South Asian speculative fiction, and more! See the full schedule for details.
More specific information on my panels can be found below. Maybe I will see you in Seattle!
I meant to post a bunch of reviews along the way as I did this year's Hugo reading, but the summer sort of got in the way. Oh, well. I still may write longer reviews for some of these and post them here (I did get to some of the novels in June), but since Hugo voting was due last night, I figured I'd just post my full ballot with a few general explanations while it's fresh in my mind. You can find short reviews for most of these on my 2025 Hugo Goodreads shelf.
Note that I didn't vote in all the categories. It's just too much (it's like taking on a part-time job!), and I don't feel all that qualified to judge some of the categories. Still, I managed to vote in most of the categories this year. See the Hugo website for the full list of categories and nominees.
As usual, I'm loosely following my principles of Hugo voting that I'm most interested in works that somehow break new ground in the genre, have some philosophical element, and/or are just plain enjoyable. Maybe other Hugo voters go on vibes, which are impossible to entirely eliminate, but I try reward things that are on the whole doing something new and interesting.
I'm thrilled to be attending Worldcon this year where I'll be on a panel and doing an academic track presentation as part of the Science Fiction and Philosophy Society. Maybe I will see you in Seattle at this year's Hugo ceremony on August 16!
