This year I’ll be helping judge the Baillie Gifford prize for non-fiction. Radio 4 presenter Martha Kearney will chair the panel. Fellow judges are professor and author Shahidha Bari, New Statesmen writer Leo Robson, New York Times editor Max Strasser and journalist and author Bee Wilson. The winner will be announced on Thursday 19 November.
On Tuesday 3 December at 7pm I’ll be chairing a discussion at London’s Delfina Foundation about energy utopias, and the potential of hydrogen as a locally-produced sustainable energy source. Speakers include the artist Nick Laessing, Rokiah Yaman (Project Manager, LEAP closed-loop technologies) and Dr Chiara Ambrosio (History and Philosophy of Science, UCL).There may also be food, assuming Nick’s hydrogen stove behaves itself. More details here.
Thanks (I assume) to the those indefatigable Head of Zeus people, who are even now getting my anthology We Robots ready for publication, I’m invited to this year’s Berlin International Literature Festival, to take part in Automatic Writing 2.0, a special programme devoted to the literary impact of artifical intelligence.
Amidst other mischief, on Sunday 15 September at 12:30pm I’ll be reading from a new story, The Overcast.
Come to Cinema 3 at London’s Barbican Centre, where I’ll be kicking off a season of Stanislaw Lem on film with the Brothers Quay, artists Andrzej Klimowski and Danusia Schejbal, and Dr Mark Bould, author of the BFI Classics monograph on Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris.
We’ve got some short films kick off the evening at 6.45pm on Thursday 11 April. More details here.
(Not that I wish to oversell this, you understand…)
Come along to New Scientist Live at 2.30pm on Saturday 22 September and you’ll find me talking to documentary-maker Rory Kennedy about how NASA shapes life on the ground, how it juggles the competing promises of the Moon and Mars, and how public and private space initiatives can work together. Kennedy will also be discussing her life as a documentary film-maker, her memories of her uncle “Jack” Kennedy, and how the Apollo program inspired her philanthropic career.
On Saturday 30 September 2017 I’ll be heading to Vilnius to join Vernor Vinge and Yoon-Ha Lee as guest of honour at Lituanicon, the Lithuanian science fiction and fantasy fan convention.
This will be my first opportunity to trot out some of my recent research into ageing and death. There may also be sightseeing.
At 1.30pm on Thursday 28 September, I’ll be bringing Stalin and his scientists to New Scientist Live at the Excel in London. Further details here.
On 16 August at 2pm I’ll be bringing Stalin’s scientists to the Edinburgh International Book Festival. More details here.
On Sunday 11 June at 2.00pm I’ll be at the York Festival of Ideas, talking about Stalin and his scientists.
May contain nuts.
Admission is free. Further details here.
We imagine things before we make them, from spacecraft to smartphones – and designers often turn artists’ imaginings of the future into our everyday reality. So who’s in charge?
I am.
At least, I will be on 29 June when I herd Matt Smith (editor of 2000 AD) spaceflight expert Piers Bizony and architect Liam Young into London’s Barbican Centre for a session called The Dreamer’s Club. Fun and games begin at 7.30pm. Details and tickets here.