(2023-09-14) Sloan What Would A Wizard Read

Robin Sloan: What would a wizard read? This new novel is my answer to that question

What I’d like to do in this newsletter, over the next nine months, is assemble a rich introduction and companion

For the New York Times, I reviewed What You Are Looking For Is in the Library, a novel by Michiko Aoyama, translated by Alison Watts.

My review became a minimanifesto in defense of a certain kind of story:

In her Hatori ward, good fortune is not arbitrary or unearned; it is never a gauzy gift from the universe. It arises instead from action, experience and wisdom.

In this review, I focus on the skill required to make kindness and good fortune compelling in a novel

I believe it is time, instead, for creative investigations of decency, virtue, and goodness.

Here’s a question for you: what are the truly great author websites?

we are deep into a golden age of Actually Serious science journalism and explanation. It’s never been better, if you know where to look. Quanta Magazine is of course the great, central example.

Steve Jobs had a particular blind spot when it came to networking: At the same time that he was ordering AppleTalk [circa 1984] Jobs still didn’t understand the need to link computers together to share information.

Here is a great framing from Frank Lantz: Making video games combines everything that’s hard about building a bridge with everything that’s hard about composing an opera. Games are operas made out of bridges.