The New York Review of Science Fiction

Volume 24 now available on demand from Lulu.com

Dear Readers,

The entirety of volume 24 is now available on Lulu.

August 2012 Table of Contents

ISSUE #288 August 2012 Volume 24, No. 12 ISSN #1052-9438

ESSAYS

Tom Purdom: When I Was Writing: Installment Ten: Five Against the Peace Tyrant: 1
Darrell Schweitzer: Reading the World’s Oldest Novel: Some Further Thoughts about Genre: 14
Victor Grech: The Pinocchio Syndrome: Revisited: 16
Mike Barrett: Journey from Reglathium: The Novels of Mike Sirota: 21

REVIEWS

Deinde, written by August Schulenburg, directed by Heather Cohn, reviewed by Jen Gunnels: 1
Edward M. Wysocki, Jr.’s The Great Heinlein Mystery: Science Fiction, Innovation, and Naval Technology, reviewed by Damien Broderick: 6
Steven Erikson’s Forge of Darkness: The Kharkanas Trilogy Book 1, reviewed by A. P. Canavan: 12

PLUS

Leprechauns from hell (11) and an editorial (24).

Deinde, reviewed by Jen Gunnels

written by August Schulenburg, 
directed by Heather Cohn

produced by Flux Theatre Ensemble, featuring, Rachael Hip-Flores, David Ian Lee, Isaiah Tanenbaum, Nitya Vidyasagar, and Ken Glickfeld. 

The Secret Theatre, Long Island City.




DANIEL: If anyone needs more of the research presented, then—

MAC: I don’t, I’m in.

DANIEL: Oh, good.

MAC: When the singularity knocks, you open the door, know what I’m saying?


—Deinde, August Schulenburg


A few years ago, I attended the Singularity Summit in New York City hosted by the Singularity Institute. It would be an understatement to say it was an odd experience for me. Out of a room of perhaps twenty individuals in the post-conference planning session for the next conference, I was the only humanities person in the room. Sitting there sandwiched between an astrophysicist and a neuroscientist (two of only four women in the room), I felt slightly alien. The questions being raised weren’t beyond my understanding—I have read Rucker and Sawyer for heaven’s sake. Upload a consciousness? Sure. Why not? Create an A.I. and make sure that any ethics and morals coded in can change over time if necessary (kudos on accounting for change so that we don’t have some kind of Terminator or Matrix situation). What concerned me, however, were the questions hovering just beneath these ideas. Exactly who gets uploaded? How is that determined? What kind of rights will they have? Whose morals and ethics will be chosen? Will we still be human?


August 2012 Editorial: It Is, Perhaps, the End of the Beginning

[Note: Comments are open!]

With the publication of this issue, NYRSF completes 24 years of continuous monthly publication. In those years we have published many fine issues, and we are proud of even the least of them. We have gained and lost many fine staff members and editors, fostered relationships and seen the breakup of relationships, and unremittingly tried to raise the level of discourse about sf and fantasy. And you know what? We are going to keep right on doing it.