A collection of articles by Robin Sloan [link dump]
A few years ago, I discovered an author. His name is Robin Sloan, and he writes things that resonate with me, including the Wonderful Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour bookstore (which is likely my favorite novel of the last ten years.) Sloan is also a fairly prolific essayist, and some of his essays touch on ideas that are important and realted to the work that I do. This is a quick collection of links to some of his essays, projects, and short stories–along with a brief description of each–(posted half for personal reference.)
Return to Nib’s Knoll
Years ago, when the Internet was Interesting Sloan particiapted in an online community called TinyMUSE. He writes about it here, and in doing so, paints a picture of the early internet that feels present, alive, and accessible.
MicroMUSE, as it’s presented here, has a lot in common thematically with the forthcoming Cyberpunk MUSH/MUD from Of Many Trades, including some shared herritage in the codebase.
The article is worth reading, even if you aren’t a fan of early internet culture.
The secret of Minecraft, and its challenge to the rest of us
Why is minecraft as popular as it is? Essentially, this article is about hidden, memetic knowledge as a tool for community building. (That doesn’t sound nearly as fun as it should.)
This article is especially compelling after reading Return to Nib’s Knoll.
Making Culture for the Internet
The Internet gives publishers access to a global audience, but most of us only ever reach the portion that speaks our language. Is this bad? How could we fix it?
Writing With The Machine
Have you ever wanted a computerized writing partner that had been trained on the works of every scifi author of the early 20th century? Here is that writing partner, along with some musings on the nature of machine intelegence.
Actually Cyberpunk
How long have we been living in a sci-fi dystopia?
The Moby-Dick variations: Adventures in the Branch Library of Babel
Where does one novel end and another one begin?
That’s the meat of this article. What makes a novel a novel? Also contains a link to one of my favorite short stories (The Branch Library of Babel It’s like Borges’ Library, but all the books are Moby Dick.)
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