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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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!)
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!
The New Worlds Patreon wrapped up its fifth year at the end of February, and now you can get the Year Five collection!
Featuring discussions of everything from different forms of government to issues of representing invented languages on the page. Get it from Book View Cafe (via our shiny new storefront! we have both epub and mobi!), Barnes & Noble (for Nook), Google Play, iTunes, Kobo, Indigo, or Amazon US or UK. (Be aware that the Amazon US link gives me a small commission. Despite that kickback, though, I strongly encourage buying from sources other than Amazon when you can; BVC sells Kindle-compatible mobi files, too.)
This is only the ebook, by the way — the print edition will follow next month!
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!
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!
Drying, freezing, salting, pickling, jugging, and more — the New Worlds Patreon is looking at methods of food preservation! Comment over there.
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!
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!
The New Worlds Patreon continues its survey of thieves with a look at the glamorous kind — the pirates and the highwaymen! Comment over there.
With this, the New Worlds Patreon officially enters Year Six! The Year Five collection is in prep, and in the meanwhile, we’re starting off in fine larcenous style by talking about thieves. Comment over there!
For the last essay not only of the month but of Year Five, the New Worlds Patreon flips the coin from “how do you keep from freezing” to “how do you avoid sweating to death.” Comment over there!
(Apologies; once again I neglected to correct for the BVC site rebuild by reposting the essay here. That shouldn’t be an issue for much longer, though!)
I am infamous among friends and family for how easily I get cold. But I maintain that this is only natural: at temperatures below about sixty degrees Fahrenheit (fifteen degrees Celsius, for those of you on that system), human beings can die of hypothermia.
This week the New Worlds Patreon reflects the biases of its creator, as I discuss the human struggle to stay warm when it’s cold outside! Comment over there.
I’m a night owl. If I’m up to see the sun rise, something has gone horribly wrong at one end of my day or the other. And while I’m theoretically there to see the sunset, in practice I hardly pay attention to it, unless I’m outside for some reason.
This luxury is brought to me by ubiquitous artificial lighting.
Energy sources are a big topic of conversation these days. With fossil fuels being both damaging to the environment and increasingly difficult to acquire, we’re looking into a wide variety of alternatives — some of which are cutting-edge, and others of which are very old indeed.
The one option that’s been with us from the start has been muscle power. Our own to begin with; later, after we domesticated animals, we got to use theirs instead. For millennia, everything from agriculture to textile manufacture to metalworking has been carried out with sweat and toil, fueled by the food we and our livestock eat. But of course, you can’t elbow grease your way to everything. No amount of direct labor will cause food to cook, nor pottery to harden, nor ores to smelt.
For that, we needed fire.
