Author Archives: Damien Walter

One of the best moments researching the JG Ballard video essay was watching Crash Cronenberg is an unnervingly gifted filmmaker. Crash is a lot like an 80s straight-to-video erotic thriller. Because it kind of is, except it’s now the mid 90s, and Crash, at $10 million dollars, is one of Cronenberg’s higher budget outings. SoContinue reading “Cronenberg meets Ballard”

The true meaning of SILO It’s Plato’s Republic And they ain’t subtle about it The Silo itself is basically the “ideal” society described by Plato and the Silo residents spend half their time watching images projected on the cave wall while a heroic few climb upwards to the truth it’s a pretty cool idea HughContinue reading “Scifi Plato”

There’s a long running argument among socialists about the role of the state. Socialism’s roots in the philosophies of Kant and Hegel focussed it on state power. The perfected state was the tool that would develop society up to its highest potential. The 20th century version of this was the idealisation of state agencies likeContinue reading “The Ministry for the Future”

AVS Actual Viable Story For the next 75 years of the 21st century ahead of us Without a future to head towards we’re going, to put it mildly, slightly crazy Science fiction has given us futures we don’t want…too many dystopias to list Science fiction has given us futures we can’t have…woo woo starships galoreContinue reading “AVS”

It’s true that I don’t feature many new writers on the Science Fiction channel Back when I was writing my science fiction column for The Guardian I read and wrote about many new writers But there are 3 reasons why I don’t do so now 1. there’s far too much to read 2. the natureContinue reading “An idea you cannot know”

In 2011 the Chinese communist party banned time travel movies science fiction has been increasingly heavily censored in China ever since. The few Chinese SF authors you hear of are carefully selected because the CCP have studied every cause that leads to the fall of authorian regeimes and identified science fiction among them. For overContinue reading “Ban time travel…yesterday”

One reason is that he wanted to write a medieval fantasy set in space. Much of the “technology” in DUNE – force shields etc – is setup simply to make planetary fiefdoms and men fighting with swords somewhat believable in the far future. But Herbert had a deeper drive. Herbert hated and feared authoritatian power,Continue reading “Why did Frank Herbert write Dune?”

It’s become a popular talking point on the conservative right to condemn the “dangers of utopianism” And the progressive left has to hold up its hands and admit that the utopian project has indeed broken some eggs, caused some famines, founded some gulag networks etc along the way So at a time of some cynicismContinue reading “The only utopia that actually works”