New Worlds: The Cultural Weight of Time
The New Worlds Patreon has discussed calendars before, but there was one aspect we missed: the cultural significance we attach to them. Comment over there!
Posts Tagged ‘book view cafe’
New Worlds: Weights and Measures
Ours is a highly precise world — so much so that we tend to forget that units of measurement aren’t some naturally-existing thing, and that it takes a lot of work to keep them accurate. The New Worlds Patreon takes a look at weights and measures; comment over there!
New Worlds: Calculation Devices
Be honest: how much do you rely on your phone to do math for you these days? We’ve long had assistive devices to help us perform mathematical operations, and this week the New Worlds Patreon takes a look at some pre-electronic ones. Comment over there!
New Worlds: Count to Ten
I kind of love it when the New Worlds Patreon swings around to a particularly off-the-wall topic. My patrons have voted for “math and measurements” as the general theme for this month, so we’re starting off with counting systems — decimal, vigesimal, octal, and more! Comment over there.
New Worlds: Seeking Salvation
The last New Worlds Patreon essay for this month is a little oversized, as it covers both the remission of sin and the ultimate salvation of the human soul. Comment over there!
New Worlds: The Problem of Evil
The New Worlds Patreon gets even more theological with questions like “why does evil exist?” and “what is sin?” Comment over there!
New Worlds: The End of Days
It’s not quite R.E.M. karaoke time at the New Worlds Patreon, but it’s close. This week, we’re talking about the literal end times! Comment over there.
New Worlds: In the Beginning
Six years into the New Worlds Patreon, we’re finally taking a look at where everything begins! Comment over there.
New Worlds: The Uses of Slave Labor
The New Worlds Patreon will have to come back to the topic of slavery later, because there’s still more to say. But the last post for this month looks at a rather central question: just what were all of those enslaved people made to do? Comment over there.
New Worlds: Slave Rights (and Lack Thereof)
As the New Worlds Patreon continues its grim survey of slavery, we come to the question of what rights, if any, slaves might have in a given society. Comment over there.
New Worlds: Foundations of Slavery
In discussing the reprehensible institution of slavery, the New Worlds Patreon looks next at the questions of who was enslaved and on what grounds, and who owned those slaves. Comment over there.
New Worlds, Year Five — now in print!
If you prefer your worldbuilding essays in tangible form, you can now get New Worlds, Year Five in print from Barnes and Noble, Books-a-Million, Bookshop.org, IndieBound, and Amazon in the US or in the UK — note that the US link gives me a small commission, but I mention that for disclosure, not as a push for you to buy from Amazon.
Also also! At JordanCon last month they published their (I think) annual) anthology, this time titled Neither Beginnings Nor Endings. It contains my long story “And Ask No Leave of Thee,” which the familiar among you will have recognized as a line from the ballad “Tam Lin;” yes, after several decades, my brain finally produced a Tam Lin retelling! You can get the anthology only from Amazon, in ebook or in print (both of those commission links again).
New Worlds: Slavery in Fiction
Sooner or later, any discussion of human culture and history has to address the topic of slavery, and the Topic Builders of the New Worlds Patreon have decided that time has come. We begin our journey down this very ugly road with more of an overview perspective than usual — comment over there.
New Worlds Theory Post: Magic Is
For the fifth Friday this month, the New Worlds Patreon begins a journey (that will stretch across the theory essays for Year Six) through the question of how to create a magic system. We begin with the origins of systematized magic in genre fantasy, and with the countervailing notion of magic as a thing that is, rather than a thing one does. Comment over there!
(Edit: link was broken before because I forgot I had edited the title and URL of the post at BVC. It’s fixed now!)
New Worlds: Dining Out
This is not the final New Worlds Patreon post for the month, as there is one more Friday to come — but that one will (as is traditional) be devoted to a “theory” essay, so this is the last one for this topic! We turn our attention to restaurants, a fixture of life very characteristic of our modern society, but not unique to it. Comment over there!
New Worlds: Fancy Feasts
The “banquets” I’ve attended at academic conferences and SF/F conventions are a pale echo of the sumptuousness that word evokes. This week, the New Worlds Patreon looks at feasting — comment over there!
New Worlds: Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice
How much would the contents of your kitchen spice cabinet be worth five hundred years ago? The New Worlds Patreon turns its attention to the outsized importance of herbs, spices, and other seasonings in the economic and political history of the world. Comment over there!
New Worlds: Food Preservation
Drying, freezing, salting, pickling, jugging, and more — the New Worlds Patreon is looking at methods of food preservation! Comment over there.
New Worlds: Gangs and Organized Crime
Just as not all thieves work in groups, not all criminal groups are primarily about theft. For the last week of March, the New Worlds Patreon takes on organized crime. Comment over there!
New Worlds: The Thieves’ Guild Fantasy
It had to come eventually, in any discussion of theft and worldbuilding in speculative fiction: this week the New Worlds Patreon is talking about the trope of thieves’ guilds. Comment over there!
