SCI FI EYE
For two years I wrote a science fiction column for the UK’s Engineer magazine. The column, “SciFi Eye”, was part of a new look for the mag, and saw me speculate on how recent engineering news might inspire science fiction.
I worked at an engineering institution at the time, where I developed a great respect for all things engineer (A structural engineer advised me on the super structure in my second novel, Steeple). Engineers have always, it seems to me, been the ones to make science fiction reality.
It was an absolute pleasure to write – the comments were always a hoot. Below are the complete range of columns.
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Manipulating the weather creates perfect conditions for scifi
Many of our earliest stories were shaped by the weather, as the struggle for survival was decided in significant part by the success or failure…
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Trains in SciFi: transport through war, revolution and time
For an invention getting on for 200 years old, rail transport has a remarkable durability as a badge of prestige among nations. China, France, Japan,…
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How money in SciFi helps sell motives, characters and worlds
Money is a simple method by which scifi writers establish the world of their stories. Our dependence on and hunger for currency has helped define…
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The distrubing future of autonomous weapons
What exactly is it that we find so unnerving about the proliferation of autonomous weapon systems? Reporting on the 2017 International Joint Conference on Artificial…
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The humbling of the world’s great navies
Ever since HG Wells’ The War of the Worlds, in which HMS Thunderchild engages Martian tripods off the Essex coast, the world’s navies have fired…
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The enormous threat of the asteroid
Perhaps more than any other apocalyptic scenario, the asteroid strike holds the potential to expose humanity’s hard-won evolutionary supremacy as little more than a brief…
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Tunnels are portals to future worlds
To the 21st century citizen, the tunnel is one of those engineering accomplishments that’s easily taken for granted, or barely noticed at all – unless…
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Implants and the ‘transhuman’ in science fiction
Last month, The Engineer reported on progress towards bionic eye implants. An array of silicon nanowires arranged in an electrode grid, implanted behind the retina…
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Robot tales: breaking and cherishing our programming
There’s nothing quite like a robot to help spin a good story. Automatons offer scifi scribblers an opportunity to create our own Frankenstein tales: of…
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Flying cars: Expect queues at your showroom
For decades the idea of the flying car has helped shape our vision of the future, every bit as much as the robot and the…
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Mars: the mythic arena
One might have expected the science fiction fan to have given up on Mars by now. To the Moon-shot optimists of the 1960s its colonisation…
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The super soldier of the future
Super soldiers are not the easiest subject matter for the science fiction writer in search of heroes. Too many soldiers with too much technology inevitably…
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The shape of things to come – Mr HG Wells
Mr HG Wells, author of popular scientific romance The Time Machine, turns the pages of The Engineer for clues as to the shape of our…
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Where are driverless cars taking us?
Since Mr Benz unveiled his patented motor-wagen, the car has helped define the way we imagine our future, as the most intimate expression of man’s…
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Something new under the sun
Our star suffers from a rather reduced role in science fiction. Strange, when it was the centre of entire cultures’ foundation tales – the original…
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The nanotech swarm
Legions of microscopic robots fascinate scifi writers, from Star Trek’s Borg nanoprobes to the power-outage swarm of Revolution. In each case nanotech is a tyrant,…
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Bacteria: making the most of the microbes in SciFi
Ah, microorganisms. Is there anything they can’t do? Microbiological agents such as viruses and bacteria have become a popular tool for writers seeking to destroy…
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Picturing a future of human invisibility
Last month The Engineer featured news about that enduring love of science fiction writers, invisibility. Engineers from Iowa State University, it reports, have developed a…
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Robotic limbs: the future in our grasp
This month, The Engineer reported on A-Gear, robotic arm supports developed by researchers at The University of Twente as aids for those affected by Duchenne…
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Bugs and SciFi: Imagining the new beetlemania
Insects can get something of a bad rap in science fiction. From the ‘monstrous vermin’ body shock of Metamorphosis and The Fly to the giant…
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‘Smart Dressings’: All dressed up and nowhere to go
For many science fiction writers the human form, and man’s attempt to alter or augment it, offers a rich seam of stories. We like to…
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New engineering column coming in 2016!
Delighted to announce that from 2016 I’ll be contributing a science fiction column to The Engineer magazine, which has been reporting on engineering innovation since 1856. The column…