Weapons with Free Will

With the ongoing development of artificial intelligence, robotics, and image recognition technology, it was only a matter of time—and not much time—before innovations were applied to military weapons.  Already in March of this year a “lethal autonomous weapons system” was used by the government of Libya against rebel militia.  This was a Kargu-2, an intelligent

Paranormal Friends with Gadgets

In the last post I reviewed examples of technology used in early 20th century horror fiction to conjure egregore-like entities.  The basic plot of these stories involved a narrator whose doomed friend summons dangerous beings using an invention.  The device augments human visual perception, though other sensory apparatus may come into play. An underlying assumption

Technologies of Conjuration in Weird Fiction

“What to my mind forms the essence of sound weird literature today is not so much the contradiction of reality as the hypothetical extension of reality.”             —H.P. Lovecraft, in a letter to Clark Ashton Smith, 1932 Ancient Examples An interesting episode in Homer’s Odyssey is when Odysseus visits the Kingdom of the Dead.  He conjures the souls of

Nonbinary

Our local sci-fi book club recently discussed Tillie Walden’s On a Sunbeam.  Originally a webcomic, it was published in book form in 2018.  This is an interesting graphic novel, both visually—a very spare palette is artfully used—and in terms of content.  In 2017 it was nominated for an Eisner award for Best Digital Comic.  Well