Ada Palmer: belief

Transcript context

…And what’s the science fiction anthology you’re editing and writing for? So, two different things. I’m doing a collection of essays co-authored with Jo Walton. The subtitle is Conversations on the Project of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Some of it is about the craft of writing, but some of it is about the history of the genre. There’s a history in there of the actual physical printing of science fiction books and how that influences what gets written. But there are also zoomed-out essays about questions like what I call the protagonist problem, and how it is more and more rare these days for any book to have a structure other than centering upon a core protagonist. Or we have an essay in there about hopepunk. We have essays about how science fiction historically has served to combat censorship and to increase international empathy. So, it’s a collection of detailed reflections on the genre, its history, and just how powerful it is to influence the way we think as a society. I’m also co-writing with her a novel about an exoplanet terraforming mission. Great. Last question. Let’s say you were organizing a two-to-three-day event, all expenses paid, and you get to choose three or four people — only living people. They would fly from anywhere in the world and come sit around and talk with you for these two or three days. Not people you currently know, but with whom would you choose to meet?…

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