Worlds Of Speculative Fiction Series Resumes With Cordwainer Smith

Back in 2016, I started a new monthly talk series, hosted at one of our local libraries, called "Worlds of Speculative Fiction".  Up until the COVID-19 pandemic, we had met regularly to discuss authors and their bodies of literature within the genres of fantasy, science fiction, horror, cyberpunk, weird, alternate history, and others that fit into that overarching class of "speculative fiction".

Each session was devoted to one author, and usually focused on one main series of their works in which a more or less coherent narrative "world" could be found.  During the sessions, we discussed the world-building, the author's background and biography, and some selected philosophical themes either worked into or bearing upon the novels or short stories for that month.  

I videorecorded each of the 43 sessions we held - you can find them curated in this playlist - and we developed a group of committed "regulars" who would not just attend but actively participate in the monthly discussions.  They also suggested authors to incorporate into the series.  

We had to cancel the in-person sessions indefinitely, due to COVID-19.  That particular library is open again, but there's no effective way to socially distance in an hour-long session held around a conference table, and I can't imagine a masked-up presentation would make for interesting video.  So since March, the series has simply been on hold.

Beginning this month, I am starting the series back up again, but in a new format.  I've given a lot of thought to how I might continue the focused discussions of narrative world, author, and philosophical themes and also actively engage with an audience equally interested in these authors, texts, and ideas.  What I'm planning to do going forward each month is this:

• Produce a roughly 90-minute YouTube video that will be my "talk" for the month, going into all the matters I want to bring into the conversation.
  
  
• Premiere that YouTube video at a regularly scheduled day and time.  YouTube premieres allow the viewers of that video to engage in a live online chat as the video plays.  I'll be in that chat, answering questions, addressing comments, and perhaps writing out a few additional points of my own.
  
  
• Hold a video-conferencing discussion session with a smaller group of participants right after the video premiere, continuing and deepening the conversation.  I won't be recording this session.

The author I've selected for this month of July is someone I have been wanting to get to for quite some time, Cordwainer Smith (who was actually Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger). We'll be focusing on his "Instrumentality of Mankind" narrative universe, which is spread out over a number of short stories and one novel.

If you're interested in taking part in the discussions in this first session in the new format, you might want to get your hands on the main books we'll be drawing upon:

• The Rediscovery of Man: The Complete Short Science Fiction of Cordwainer Smith - an omnibus of his short stories
• Norstrilia - the one novel set in that narrative universe

You can sign up for the videoconferencing discussion session here.  The link to the video premiere will become available after I've created the video.

We have five more months left to the year for further sessions. I am kicking around a number of authors and narrative universes for those sessions, some of which I was scheduled to discuss this year, some of which I now have a bit of a yearning to tackle.  I'm not yet committing to which month I'll do which author and world, but here's what I have in mind so far:

• Veronica Roth - focusing on the narrative universe of her "Carve the Mark" novels and short stories
• Umberto Eco's - focusing on his novels, and how semiotics permeate them
• R. Scott Bakker - focusing on his "Second Apocalypse" series of novels (might need to be two sessions)
• Margaret Atwood - focusing on her "Gilead" alternate history/dystopia novels
• Walter Miller - focusing on his novel A Canticle for Leibowitz