Re:William Gibson on the apocalypse: “it’s been happening fo...
by Apocryphon on Sunday March 01, 2020 @03:33AM
(#22455826)
> Agency focuses on an alternate present in which Britain did not vote to leave the EU and the US did not elect Donald Trump as its 45th president. But this is no Remainer fantasy: an unspecified conflict in the Syrian city of Qamishli has brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.
Reminds me of Ken MacLeod's The Execution Channel, which goes out of its way to mention that Gore was elected president- and an alternate 9/11 that hits Boston and Philadelphia leads to the War on Terror anyway. Though written in 2006 or so, it felt particularly prescient a peace later despite being pre-smartphones and social media- it capture an increasingly paranoid world choked full of state-sponsored internet disinfo, influential conspiracy theory bloggers, climate change refugees. Despite the weird ending and not the best plot, the world-building and general tone manages to have resonance nearly fifteen years later.
Reminds me of Ken MacLeod's The Execution Channel, which goes out of its way to mention that Gore was elected president- and an alternate 9/11 that hits Boston and Philadelphia leads to the War on Terror anyway. Though written in 2006 or so, it felt particularly prescient a peace later despite being pre-smartphones and social media- it capture an increasingly paranoid world choked full of state-sponsored internet disinfo, influential conspiracy theory bloggers, climate change refugees. Despite the weird ending and not the best plot, the world-building and general tone manages to have resonance nearly fifteen years later.