>Junot's piece reminded me of the last time I read a latino
>voice in sci-fi which was one of William Gibson's last books
>(can't remember if it was Zero Country or the one before)
>where there's a Cuban family and I had to suspend all of my
>disbelief because he just got so much cultural shit wrong. It
>wasn't quite offensive but, just not well done.
>
Question, which other Gibson book would you recommend. I finished Neuromancer recently, and that book really deserves all the love it gets. I appreciated how much space male and female voices got within the text and how Gibson, at least, attempted to have ethnic or an international feel to the narrative, in particular in 1984, when sci-fi was still very white.

>I've always liked Junot's voice because well it's right, but I
>think he overstates it in his writing sometimes. Like it isn't
>subtle and maybe tat's just a preference of mine. I like it
>when the tone speaks to me in a you have to know what I mean
>kinda way rather than see I know what I mean!! Does that make
>sense.
>
makes perfect sense and the reason his last collection wasn't great with a capital G. it's become a bit of a crouch for him.

>>basically its 2165 global warming has claimed vast areas on
>>the ocean borders of the northern continent, but
>civilization
>>is still thriving. Black and Brown have claimed (through
>war)
>>big chunks of what was once America and are now regions.
>What
>>is now middle America for the most part is still
>predominantly
>>white and their militants are trying to recolonize / conquer
>>the west. also near half the population, in the non-white
>>regions, are mixed
>
>What about in the white regions though?
>
in my mind the white regions are 80% white. the rest distributed among mixies, blacks and latinos, maybe Asians. The white regions are also very much Tea Party fantasies, sort of like Atwood's world in The Handmaid's Tale without the costumes and social regiments.

>>the protagonist, Robeson, is a film maker
>
>first question is what does it mean to be a film maker in
>2165?
>
great question. still working it

>
>You know I think this is one of the hardest aspects of sci-fi.
>Particularly from our perspective where so often the sci-fi is
>the setting. In hard sf you start with the tech and the
>issues it raises and then build the characters around that.
>from the opposite end of the spectrum you start with
>characters and plots and try to put them in the technological
>world appropriate. the little details like that can make or
>break a story just as much as in hard sf though.
>
pretty much. If i continue to expand. i want to add a bit about space travel and how 150 years in the future we still haven't made contact with other life...
>
>I've been writing most of the weekend on the piece that I
>started in the middle of this thread. right now I think it's
>a short self contained story but I've built a world which can
>definitely be expanded on. Basic premise is that society
>pushes forward technologically via an AI that isn't really an
>AI because it was designed to have human checks and balances.
>Main character is a policy analyst who when given a special
>assignment finds an inconsistency in the programming that can
>have world shattering implications.

Question, is this a singularity story? and how are you conceiving the "human" checks and balances to affect an AI. Are you working in terrain similar to Asimov's Robot Series? Also, how distant is this future.

also the character, single? married? children? Black? alt-Balck?