“...it’s a chaotic, desperate age and therefore has to produce art.”
July 6, 2020 8:04 AM   Subscribe

Ben Wittes and Kate Klonick of LawFare interview Renaissance historian, science fiction writer and anime consultant Ada Palmer on their YouTube channel In Lieu of Fun.

April 27
  • the myth of the renaissance
  • being an anime and manga consultant
  • the use of European history in manga and anime as a space to explore issues of gender identity and sexuality
  • history and censorship
  • the demise of the Norse colony in Greenland
July 2
  • settling Polynesia, Iceland and Mars
  • how we think about exploration
  • how science fiction has responded to the history of imperialism
  • the distance of space
  • early utopian fiction and the Protestant Reformation in Europe
Each interview runs a little over an hour. The lists of topics discussed are incomplete.

Most of In Lieu of Fun's content deals with US law and politics. Ada Palmer previously on MetaFilter & FanFare 1, 2 3 4 5

Bonus: Two Ruminations Upon Distance, excerpts from Perhaps the Stars, the final installment of her Terra Ignota series, due to be published in 2021.
posted by nangar (5 comments total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
I am an Ada Palmer junkie, love her fiction and her ex urbe post on ethics rewired my brain. Thanks for posting this!
posted by Wretch729 at 9:20 AM on July 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


Recent FPP on Palmer's Ex Urbe post on this.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:33 AM on July 7, 2020 [1 favorite]


Wittes does enough audio content that he should be recording locally and syncing that audio vs. relying on Zoom, which always has artifacts and problems. It's one thing if his guests don't know how to do that, but for Ben, who does audio all day, it's just a shame.
posted by gen at 6:03 PM on July 7, 2020


The excerpts from Perhaps the Stars are exciting. The first three books came out in quick succession, and I was afraid the delay to Book 4 might mean a loss of momentum, but these excerpts suggest the next book will live up to its predecessors. Unless I'm mistaken, they also imply that Mycroft didn't die at the end of Book 3 and will continue as the main narrator for Book 4, which is a relief because I can't imagine how the series would work without his (their) narrative voice.
posted by verstegan at 2:26 AM on July 9, 2020


Ada Palmer has said (somewhere or another, I don't remember where) that Book 4 was challenging to write because she had to switch back and forth between different narrators. I guess this means that the narration in Perhaps the Stars will switch back and forth between the perspectives of Anonymous and Mycroft like the end of Book 3.

(Reading between the lines, it sounds like Utopia must have nabbed Mycroft, faked their death, and taken them to Mars. But we'll find out when the book comes out.)
posted by nangar at 5:27 AM on July 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


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