Monday, March 12, 2007

Osama Phone Home


I have a new story in this issue (March/April) of MIT Technology Review. It's called "Osama Phone Home," and is about the most political and contemporary piece I've ever done. It's also the first science fiction the TR has published in its century of reporting on emergent tech. Here's what editor/publisher Jason Pontin writes in the same issue:

In this, I believe, I am an entirely conventional technologist. Most of us came to technology through science fiction; our imaginations remain secretly moved by ­science-fictional ideas. Only the very exalted are honest about their debt. In his collection of lectures on the future of technology, Imagined Worlds, the great theoretical ­physicist Freeman Dyson writes, "Science is my territory, but science fiction is the landscape of my dreams."


As to the photo at the top of this entry, I think it's a dead alien. I found it lying on the snow on the trail to my shed. It was already dead when I found it. A powerful build, hairy legs, a horse-like head. I didn't move it, and I think the foxes got it.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cool story! :-) Freaky alien photo! ;-) Patiently waiting for next book.

Tim Kavi said...

Wow! What a trailblazer you are!
MIT -TR Publishes science fiction. This is great. Any hints on what led you to submit a SF story to a magazine that never published SF before? (Perhaps it was solicited). Perhaps the alien knows something--but maybe the secret died with him... Anyway..congrats!

David Marusek said...

Lee--

Yes, it was solicited. When I told the publisher that I'm a very slow writer, they gave me extra time (it took me six months).

MIT TR is one of my favorite magazines, and I was honored to be asked.

Anonymous said...

Hi Dave,
Looking at the alien, I am reminded of plants that can grow to look like other things, and when seen out of their natural setting can confuse you.

You should have checked to see if there were bones. Of course aliens might not have bones, so where does that leave us.
love from Kath