Canuck (kuh-NUHK) - (slang) (sometimes derogatory) n., a Canadian, especially a French Canadian.
This is more likely to be derogatory when used by non-Canadians or specifically applied to French Canadians — though actual Canadians please weigh in here. The origin is disputed and there are many fanciful stories out there, but the current most common (though not consensus) scholarly explanation is an alteration of Hawaiian kanaka, man, from Hawaiian sailors working off the Pacific northwest coast, where they worked alongside French Canadians in the fur trade, possibly influenced by a word ending from a First Nation language (compare for ex Inuktitut inuk, person, and for that matter Chinook). (The next most-common explanation is an alteration of either Canada or its source, Laurentian kanata, village, with the same word-ending influence.)
2025 is nearly over, and honestly, this has been one long year. So many things happened, there were days that we legitimately didn't know if we were going to make it or not. But we did. And we did it spectacularly. For one reason and one reason only. Cats. No matter what was going on in the world throughout the year, the internet continuously had cat stories going viral, specifically cat adoption stories. We get it, of course, amongst the madness of the universe, we needed some wholesomeness, and there is nothing more wholesome than stories of adorable kitties finding their forever homes.
As is a tradition at this point, now that the end of the year is coming along, we have put together the most viral, the most heartwarming, the most amazing cat adoption stories of the year. Kittens, senior cats, sick cats, cats flying into people's houses through their windows or being handed to them in drive-throughs, we have seen it all this year. And we hope to see many, many more ameowzing stories just like these next year.
And so I see also that the SF writer John Varley has died. He burst upon the SF scene in the mid-1970s with a series of stories set in a future in which various planets and moons in our system are colonized, dubbed the Eight Worlds. Sex changes for aesthetic purposes, and artificial environments for artistic purposes, were common. The most famous of these stories was probably "The Phantom of Kansas." Several of these were Hugo nominees, but they didn't win, which frustrated me; at one point I called Varley the best SF writer currently operating who'd never won a Hugo.
He did finally get a Hugo in 1979 for a story outside that universe, a searingly memorable one called "The Persistence of Vision," which resembled Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End in being framed as a hopeful scenario but which really comes across as a horror story. I once quoted, purely as an allusion without identifying it, the memorable last line of this story in a post about my relief after having had to be talking all day, and someone caught the allusion, to my pleasure. His two successor Hugo winners, "The Pusher" and "Press Enter█", both from the 1980s, were also stand-alones and searingly memorable, the former also with a killer last line, which casts a chilling air back over the whole story; the latter more openly a horror story from early on, with a surprisingly intense Luddite air. All three of these stories were excellent of their kinds, and are the Varley stories I remember the best.
He also wrote novels, of which I've read two and a half. As with many SF writers, he was better at short fiction. Also like many SF writers, he turned mostly to novels in his later years, and I know nothing about those later works.
I met him a couple of times in the early days, in passing at conventions. He was tall and looming, with a full mustache, and latterly a beard. His middle name was Herbert, and he was known informally to friends as Herb, which confused people who didn't already know that. One time when he had two stories in the same issue of Asimov's, he used "Herb Boehm" as a pseudonym on one of them, "Air Raid", a particularly gruesome story about (to mischaracterize it wickedly) rescuing passengers from an airplane crash, which turned out to be by far the better-known of those two stories. But he quickly reprinted "Air Raid" under his usual byline, and later expanded it into a novel, Millennium, which I read (it wasn't as tight as the original story), which in turn was eventually made into a movie, which I haven't seen.
60 That the Dead May Rest, Karen A. Wylie (e) 59 Emilie and the Sky World,(Emilie Adventures#2) Martha Wells (e) 58 The Thursday Murder Club, Richard Osman (e) (bkclb) 57 The Bookshop of Dust and Dreams, Mindy Thompson (e) 56 Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt (e) (bkclb) 55 Hunting Ground, Patricia Briggs (Alpha&Omega 2)(re-read) (e) 54 Cry Wolf, Patricia Briggs (Alpha & Omega 1) (re-read) (e) 53 Alpha and Omega, Patricia Briggs (Alpha&Omega.5(re-read) (e) 52 Blind Date with a Werewolf, Patricia Briggs (e) 51 The Women, Kristin Hannah (e) (bkclb) 50 Emilie and the Hollow World, (Emilie Adventures #1) Martha Wells (e) 49 Black Tie & Tails (Black Wolves of Boston #2), Wen Spencer (e) 48 Shards of Earth, Adrian Tchaikovsky(The Final Architecture #1)e) 47 Hemlock and Silver, T. Kingfisher (e) 46 Outcrossing, Celia Lake (Mysterious Charm #1) (e) 45 Outfoxing Fate, Zoe Chant/Murphy Lawless (Virtue Shifters)(e) 44 Atonement Sky, Nalini Singh (Psy-Changeling Trinity #9) (e) 43 Stone and Sky, Ben Aaronovitch (Rivers of London #10) (e) 42 Regency Buck, Georgette Heyer (re-re-re-&c-read) 41 I Dare, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (Liaden Universe #7) (page proofs) 40 To Hive and to Hold, Amy Crook (The Future of Magic #1) (e) 39 These Old Shades, Georgette Heyer, narrated by Sarah Nichols (re-re-re-&c-read, 1st time audio) 38 Faking it (Dempsey Family #2), Jennifer Crusie, narrated by Aasne Vigesaa (re-re-re-&c-read, 1st time audio) 37 Copper Script, K.J. Charles (e) 36 The Masqueraders, Georgette Heyer, narrated by Eleanor Yates (re-re-re-&c-read; 1st time audio) 35 Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language: Hereditary Deafness on Martha's Vineyard, Nora Ellen Groce (e) 34 Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Winifred Watson, narrated by Frances McDormand (re-re-re-&c-read; 1st time audio) 33 The Wings upon Her Back, Samantha Mills (e) 32 Death on the Green (Dublin Driver #2), Catie Murphy (e) 31 The Elusive Earl (Bad Heir Days #3), Grace Burrowes (e) 30 The Mysterious Marquess (Bad Heir Days #2), Grace Burrowes (e) 29 Who Will Remember (Sebastian St. Cyr #20), C.S. Harris (e) 28 The Teller of Small Fortunes, Julie Leong (e) 27 Check and Mate, Ali Hazelwood (e) 26 The Dangerous Duke (Bad Heir Days #1), Grace Burrowes (e) 25 Night's Master (Flat Earth #1) (re-read), Tanith Lee (e) 24 The Honey Pot Plot (Rocky Start #3), Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer (e) 23 Very Nice Funerals (Rocky Start #2), Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer (e) 22 The Orb of Cairado, Katherine Addison (e) 21 The Tomb of Dragons, (The Cemeteries of Amalo Trilogy, Book 3), Katherine Addison (e) 20 A Gentleman of Sinister Schemes (Lord Julian #8), Grace Burrowes (e) 19 The Thirteen Clocks (re-re-re-&c read), James Thurber (e) 18 A Gentleman Under the Mistletoe (Lord Julian #7), Grace Burrowes (e) 17 All Conditions Red (Murderbot Diaries #1) (re-re-re-&c read) (audio 1st time) 16 Destiny's Way (Doomed Earth #2), Jack Campbell (e) 15 The Sign of the Dragon, Mary Soon Lee 14 A Gentleman of Unreliable Honor (Lord Julian #6), Grace Burrowes (e) 13 Market Forces in Gretna Green (#7 Midlife Recorder), Linzi Day (e) 12 Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent, Judi Dench with Brendan O'Hea (e) 11 Code Yellow in Gretna Green (#6 Midlife Recorder), Linzi Day (e) 10 Seeing Red in Gretna Green (#5 Midlife Recorder), Linzi Day (e) 9 House Party in Gretna Green (#4 Midlife Recorder), Linzi Day (e)* 8 Ties that Bond in Gretna Green (#3 Midlife Recorder), Linzi Day (e) 7 Painting the Blues in Gretna Green (#2 Midlife Recorder), Linzi Day (e) 6 Midlife in Gretna Green (#1 Midlife Recorder), Linzi Day (e) 5 The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison (Author), Kyle McCarley (Narrator) re-re-re&c-read (audio) 4 The House in the Cerulean Sea, TJ Klune (e) 3 A Gentleman in Search of a Wife (Lord Julian #5) Grace Burrowes (e) 2 A Gentleman in Pursuit of the Truth (Lord Julian #4) Grace Burrowes (e) 1 A Gentleman in Challenging Circumstances (Lord Julian #3) Grace Burrowes (e)
_____ *Note: The list has been corrected. I did not realize that the Gretna Green novella was part of the main path, rather than a pleasant discursion, and my numbering was off. All fixed now.
Here's a series from a week or two ago that you really should check out: It Could Happen Here's "Darién Gap: One Year Later." It's four parts and I recommend listening to the whole thing, as it's some truly brilliant reporting, but if you are like me, the one that will stand out the most is the second episode, "To Be Called By No Name." It begins with a song written in 1948, Woody Guthrie's "Deportees (Plane Crash At Los Gatos)" that has horrifying resonance now, nearly 80 years later. From that jumping off point, James discusses the media coverage of the manufactured migrant crisis.
The four part series focuses on two migrants in particular, Primrose and her daughter Kim, from Zimbabwe. Primrose's family opposed the regime there and her father was disappeared; she and her daughter fled a deadly situation to try to claim refugee status in the US. The plight of migrants from African countries is even less discussed than those from Latin America or the Middle East; in detailing Primrose's story, James makes her visible, a heroic protagonist facing impossible odds, someone who lodges in your heart and stays there. It's great storytelling as well as great journalism. He refuses the objectivity of the mainstream reporters, who just don't bother to talk to migrants, let alone give voice to their names and stories.
Even posting about this tears me up. I know a lot of you reading this are doing your best to fight ICE but I want to beat every one of those bastards to death with my bare hands and by the end of this series, you will too.
Adedapo Adeniyi (also goes by Dapo The Abstract)is a Nigerian artist working in literature, film and photography, music (DJ) as well as art curation and counterculture archiving. He expresses his art through abstract avant-garde sensibilities. His debut novel, Wanderer, is available in stores.
Dapo holding his novel, Wanderer
Chisom Umeh is a Nigerian fiction writer and poet. His short stories have been featured in Omenana, Apex, Clarkesworld, Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction 2023, African Ghosts anthology, Isele, Mythaxis, Scifi Shorts, and elsewhere. His short story, “Ancestor’s Gift”, won the 2024 Tractor Beam short story contest. He was a finalist for the Seattle Worldcon Short Story Contest and is the winner of the 2025 Nommo Award for Best African Speculative Fiction Short Story.
Chisom, holding a copy of the Wanderer. Image: African Imaginary
Chisom: Hey Dapo.
Nice to have you do the interview.
I finished reading your novel Wanderer a couple of days ago, and I must say, the journey feels like one long dream. It’s a steady flow of alternating sentences and logic that sometimes contradict each other and yet, strangely enough, feels complete and cohesive. Can you tell me how you were able to keep the story you were trying to tell in focus, even while spinning such a wild tale?
Dapo: Thank you, Chisom. I’m excited to have this interview with you.
I want to start by saying the story mostly wrote itself; I was just a conduit. Most of this book was written in an automatist, stream-of-consciousness style. They were retellings of dreams, memories, and reality, and I wanted them to appear that way. I never lost sight of the story because I welcomed getting lost as I was writing it to find myself.
Chisom: Oh, that’s pretty interesting. To me, the novel reads like Amos Tutuola’s The Palmwine Drinkard crossed with Vajra Chandrasekera’s luminous prose. It definitely felt like older hands were guiding yours on the page. Were there literary influences you were channeling when writing the book?
Dapo: Yeah, I mean, I try to stay away from direct influences while I’m writing, and I didn’t read The Palmwine Drinkard until after I wrote Wanderer. I took influences more from films and cinematic sensibilities than literary, but in that regard, Borges, Philip K. Dick, Timothy Leary, André Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto, Aldous Huxley’s The Doors Of Perception, and my editor and friend, Manuel Marrero. I think these are the ones I can remember right now, plus I don’t want to go overboard. But these people and their works across surrealism, psychedelia, paranoid fiction, sci-fi, metafiction, and so on influenced me in many ways and were formative for how I approached writing and this book.
Chisom: It’s interesting that you mentioned Surrealist Manifesto, psychedelia, and paranoid fiction, because in an essay in Medium titled Abstractism Manifesto, you talked about how ‘abstractism’ is a term that subsumes all of these concepts and more. I like the way you explained it in the essay and how it relates to your work. But could you do a quick description of the term (abstractism) so we could understand it in relation to your work?
Dapo: Absolutely! So when I wrote the Abstractism Manifesto in early 2023, I defined it as being an amalgamation of solipsism, surrealism, psychedelia, subjective reality, and the physics of psychosis. I believe abstractism brings these concepts together to take reality and the world around us from a state of form to an abstract sensory state of formlessness, and that’s what I try to do with my work — the dissolution of some absolute real into an abstract cosmic real.
Chisom: In your experience as a filmmaker, what is the major difference between visual storytelling and written one? Do you prefer one medium over the other?
Dapo: I mean, writing is definitely cheaper. Making films is more expensive and taxing. I also think it’ll kill me faster so that might be why right now it excites me more than writing does. But, frankly, the major difference is the painting. With words, I’m guiding the readers’ imagination. At the end of the day, everyone will come out of it with different images. But with film, I have to literally represent those images on the screen. I’m doing the painting for the audience, they just have to watch and engage.
Chisom: Besides making movies, I know that you do some DJ work on the side. You had a collaboration with NTS, which is really great. How did that happen?
Dapo: Let me put it in context: I work with this new-age collective called Freewater, which was founded by my friends. I serve as its curator and co-director. Freewater secured a residency with NTS Radio, and since I also DJ, they featured one of my mixes as part of the collective. We’re having an underground, new wave music festival/concert on the 11th of December (I think the interview will be out after it?), and NTS is our major partner.
Chisom: That’s incredible, actually. So, does your music influence your writing in any way? Some writers like to curate playlists for particular writing projects. Something they listen to just to put themselves in the mood. Are you that kind of writer?
Dapo: Music definitely plays a huge part in my process. When I was writing Wanderer, all I listened to was shoegaze. I found a shoegaze playlist that had over a hundred songs and it was all I listened to while I slept and dreamt and while I wrote as well. I’ve been DJing for almost 2 years now, and it’s made me understand music as well as how different people interact with it. There are sensibilities of transience I borrowed from writing and translated to how I DJ.
Chisom: I kept wondering about the shoegaze reference when I was reading the book. Something told me there was more to it than just being an element in the story, and I’m glad you just confirmed that. Which brings me to your process with writing your stories and how you edit them. Do you edit while writing or after?
Dapo: Oh yeah, shoegaze has a very dreamlike, haze-inducing feeling and I wanted the book to feel like that. I do very minimal editing while writing. I finished the entire thing then read it over a couple of times before sending it to my editor, and we had this period of sending drafts back and forth and conversations on the subject matter.
But enough about me, I want to hear what type of music you listen to and how editing works for you. I mean, you just won the Nommo, haha.
Chisom: Oh, lol.
Well, I’m very mundane with my music. I don’t have any playlists or do any sort of curation. In fact, when I’m writing, I wouldn’t want to hear any music at all as it easily interferes with my thought processes and breaks my stream-of-consciousness, AKA “flow”. But when I do listen to music, outside writing, it’s very Davido and Asake and Victony, and whatever Dlala Thukzin just released. For edits, I can’t move forward with writing if I feel like there’s something wrong with a previous sentence. So I tinker with that till it feels fine to me. So we’re maybe kind of opposites on this.
Dapo: Correct me if I’m wrong but you seem like a very calculated writer. You’re delicate about detail, you’re careful. I think it’s beautiful. I wish I could be that type of writer. Like I said before (this may sound a little pretentious but I fully believe it), I don’t really do any writing, these things write themselves and use me as a conduit. I don’t know where they come from or where they are going or why; they come raw and I write in real time. My flow can be erratic most times.
Chisom: I like to think I have an eye for detail, but, trust me, I’m not really that meticulous. I know writers who would draw up elaborate plots that cover the first scene to the last, and fill up a board with sticky notes. Me? I mostly just sit down and write a story as it comes into my head. I think both our approaches are valid, so long as the outcome is something folks can read and enjoy. When I’m done writing and send the work out, that’s where my effort ends. But I’ve seen you go through hell and high water to publicize your book. And it has really paid off. Maybe that’s something you’d teach me someday?
Nardwuar holding a copy of Dapo’s first novel, Wanderer
Dapo: You’re amazing, so we’re kin.
Thank you, I think it’s been a learning curve. A lot of how this book has been handled is experimental, constantly trying to see how to reinvent whatever a rollout is supposed to be. Some days before the book came out I’d post videos of just my legs as I was walking around. Wandering, if you will. I made cards and handed out googly eyes. I’ve had readings and talks. I even had an abstractism lecture and played a psychedelic techno set. I keep thinking of ways to present a work of literature outside of just the confines of literature, especially as a multimedia artist. I look forward to reinterpreting the book and presenting it in so many other formats: photograph, sound, installation, you name it.
Chisom: Say I wanted to try my hand at writing abstractism, are you holding one of those lectures anytime soon?
Dapo: Hopefully sometime early next year. I’m working on writing another edition of the manifesto that’s more professional, but I think that through reading the manifesto that’s up right now, as well as Wanderer and some of my short stories, anyone could get the gist of what abstractism is.
What’s next for you now Chisom? In the world of African Speculative Fiction.
Chisom: For me, I’m also trying to piece together a collection of short stories that hopefully might be my debut in the book-publishing space. I want most of the stories in the collection to be centered around two themes, so that means I’m writing mostly new stories.
Anyway, it’s really been wonderful having this chat with you. I’m looking forward to reading more of your stuff in the future.
Dapo: Sending you love and the best of wishes Chisom, excited to see your collection. I’ll send you mine as it comes along. You’re a refreshing voice in the scene here.
So, I, uh, got my RSI/ergonomics debugged!* I then promptly lost two days to bad sleep due to another new mechanical failure of the balky meat mecha and also a medical appointment in re two previous malfunctions. But I seem back in business now. The new keyboard is great.
Patrons, I've got three Siderea Posts out so far this month and it's only the 12th. I have two more Posts I am hoping to get out in the next three days. Also about health insurance. We'll see if it actually happens, but it's not impossible. I have written a lot of words. (I really like my new keyboard.)
Anyways, if you weren't planning on sponsoring five posts (or – who knows? – even more) this month, adjust your pledge limits accordingly.
* It was my bra strap. It was doing something funky to how my shoulder blade moved or something. It is both surprising to me that so little pressure made so much ergonomic difference, and not surprising because previously an even lighter pressure on my kneecap from wearing long underwear made my knee malfunction spectacularly. Apparently this is how my body mechanics just are.
1. Did you get an allowance as a kid, and if so, how much was it? I remember at one point getting paid per chore done, at one point five bucks a week.
2. How old were you when you had your first job, and what was it? 16, I was a cataloging library assistant at my college library. One of my tasks was to file new cards in the card catalog and remove the cards for withdrawn books.
3. Which do you do better: save money or spend money? Spend, honestly. But I am getting much better at saving.
4. Are people more likely to borrow money from you, or are you more likely to borrow from them? Neither - I don't really have anyone around me who would bum money, and I don't need to.
5. What's the most expensive thing you've ever bought? Like me, personally, not as part of a couple? That would maybe be the gravel bike I bought. Which I really ought to get out and ride more.
Hey Americans (and other people stuck in the American healthcare system)! Shopping for a health plan on your state marketplace? Boy, do I have some information for you that you should have and probably don't. There's been an important legal change affecting your choices that has gotten almost no press.
Bronze and Catastrophic Plans Treated as HDHPs: As of Jan. 1, 2026, bronze and catastrophic plans available through an Exchange are considered HSA-compatible, regardless of whether the plans satisfy the general definition of an HDHP. This expands the ability of people enrolled in these plans to contribute to HSAs, which they generally have not been able to do in the past. Notice 2026-05 clarifies that bronze and catastrophic plans do not have to be purchased through an Exchange to qualify for the new relief.
If you are shopping plans right now (or thought you were done), you should probably be aware of this. Especially if you are planning on getting a bronze plan, a catastrophic plan, or any plan with the acronym "HSA" in the name or otherwise designated "HSA compatible".
The Trump administration doing this is tacit admission that all bronze plans have become such bad deals that they're the economic equivalent of what used to be considered a HDHP back when that concept was invented, and so should come with legal permission to protect yourself from them with an HSA.
Effective immediately, you should consider a bronze plan half an insurance plan.
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The furrigid temperatures are coming in hot (irony intended), and it's important to remember that there are other ways to keep warm without racing up your gas bill this winter! You can drink hot cocoa, look at some heartwarming cat memes, and bring your favorite feline as close as hoomanly pawssible to share in their toasty warmth.
If you're not a winter purrson, this season might be a little challenging for you. The winter lovers, on the other hand, especially those who are cat parents, are living for the cold weather. You can stay inside guilt-free, you don't have to walk your catto in the crisp cold air of a winter's morning, and most of all… your cat will be equally, if not more, lazy than you! Nothing is better than having a feline sidekick who makes you feel more purrductive than you actually are.
So, cat meowthers and pawthers, remember to bundle up, snuggle up, and warm yourself a toasty cup of hot cocoa this winter season. We're not even in winter yet. This means that the coldest is yet to come, and the best we can do is hunker down inside with a smile as our fuzzy felines give us the nice, warm hug we've been needing.
I have been up since 7, during which time I have had breakfast, emptied and refilled the dishwasher, put all the bottles in the bottle bank, used the juicer and put together a piecemeal recipe for bread because we have run out and all I have is a random mixture of flours. One and three-quarter hours. And I am tired.
Every day I think maybe I should just chance it and drop the letrozole. And then I remember: it cuts the risk of cancer returning by half. So, yes, ongoing irritating fatigue but eh, half a battery is better than none. Still. Every day I have this conversation with myself because this is ridiculous. And speaking of ridiculous...
I lived many years in south London. It has some gorgeous areas but in general, south London is a little wilder than north London, and god knows we're talking a low bar. It has its, let's call them quirksters, and many of these seem to find their way to my brother's orbit.
Last night he telephoned me because of an ongoing issue with a neighbour who lives in a one bedroom flat. In that flat also live her two kitten-cats. She's going to be visiting Jamaica again soon, and this time for something like 8/12 weeks. In that time, it is quite likely that she-kitten will get knocked up, assuming that it hasn't happened already. The neighbour would like Bro and mates to come in and take care of the cats, feed them and pet them while she is away. But Bro has no idea of what to do if he faces a pregnant cat, let alone ignore the neglect involved in getting two cats, refusing to have them done, and then leaving them alone in a flat for two to three months.
Bro and his tenants* have been trying to persuade her to neuter them, especially the tom, because while they'd gladly take the cats in and look after them, the male sprays everywhere and it really is disgusting. She's been weird about this. She says it's healthy for a female cat to have one litter of kittens at least, and anyway, she wants those kittens. She finally lost her temper, lifted her crutch to strike my brother, and said she wasn't going to let them turn her pet into a 'batty man cat.' She doesn't want to have the cat neutered because as far as she is concerned, this would make the cat gay. She is felinahomophobic, who knew this was a thing? He closed the door on her and she stood there shouting for a while. Then she sent threatening messages to my brother's friend, claiming Bro wasn't safe, and that bad things might happen to him. I don't think she'll bring business to local roadmen, cos it sounds like she lacks cash, but on the other hand she goes to Jamaica a lot, which isn't cheap. So while I get the absurdity of it all I think it does him no harm to be mindful.
What I actually think is that he should sell up his house and buy somewhere a bit less interesting. Cos this is a special end of town.
* who don't pay anything and aren't actually tenants, a long story...
Philosophy is one of those topics where, if you're intending to explore it in detail in your fiction, you probably already know more about it than I do.
The way we talk about it nowadays, it's the exemplar of a rarefied field of study, the province of intellectuals who hardly engage at all with the world around them. As a result, you're unlikely to center philosophy in your worldbuilding unless you know quite a bit about it to begin with (as I, freely confessed, do not). But I do know this much: philosophy is far from disengaged with the world. Indeed, its purpose is to consider why the world works the way it does, how we should engage with it, and other such fundamental and vital questions. So even though my own knowledge is limited, it's worth taking a bit of time to unpack just what philosophy is.
We've touched on parts of it already, because philosophy is not fully separable from other topics. The Year Six essays on sin and salvation? Those got grouped under my broad "religion" header for obvious reasons, but they're also philosophical topics -- specifically the branch known as moral philosophy, which concerns itself with ethical questions like what is good and whether one should weigh intentions or consequences more heavily in evaluating an action. For many people, religion has long been the foundation of moral philosophy . . . though the notion some hold, that a person can't really be moral without faith to enforce it, is utterly without foundation.
Last week's science essay also touched on philosophical matters, because philosophy asks questions like "what do we know and how do we know we know it?" This branch is known as epistemology, or the study of knowledge itself. That revolution in thinking I mentioned before, where the Royal Society said nullius in verba and started testing long-held dogma to see if it was right? That was an epistemological shift, one that declared sense experience and experimental procedure to be the proper basis of knowledge, rather than deference to authority.
Science also ties in with the logic branch of philosophy. How do you know if someone's reasoning is sound? Among specialists, different logical methods often get discussed in very abstract, dry-sounding ways, but we use them all the time in daily life: if you come home to find toilet paper shredded throughout the house and the only living creature who was there is the dog, ergo you conclude the dog is to blame, you're applying logic. Science, medicine, and the law all share the task of looking at the evidence and attempting to formulate an explanation that adequately explains what you see -- or, alternatively, to show that an explanation fails that test. Because, of course, the flip side of logical reasoning is the fallacy: incorrect reasoning, which fails at one or more steps in the chain.
The fourth major branch is metaphysics, and it's the hardest to pin down (thanks in part to the definition changing over time; that's what happens when your field of study has been around for thousands of years). This, I suspect, is what most people think of when they hear the word "philosophy," because metaphysics is the branch asking questions like "why does reality exist?" But here, too, it loops around to touch on other areas of culture, as the beginning and end of the universe fall under this header: religion-themed topics you'll again find in Year Six.
Enough of the abstractions, though. What does this mean for fiction?
Whether you mean it to or not, philosophy is going to soak your fiction, because it soaks your thinking. If your student at magic school decides to experiment with different ways of casting spells to see if what the teacher said is true or not, that's demonstrating a certain epistemological stance, one that says experimental results are the most valid way to answer a question. If your protagonist investigates a mystery and comes up with a theory about what's happening, they're using a specific logical approach. If your villain is pursuing a potentially admirable outcome by really terrible means, they're subscribing to a consequentialist view of ethics, the one commonly shorthanded as "the end justifies the means."
If you don't make a conscious effort to worldbuild the philosophy of your setting, its philosophy is likely to default to yours. Which is not necessarily a bad thing! But it can feel anachronistic or otherwise out of place. If the protagonist in your medieval-esque story approaches questions of knowledge and logic like a modern scientist, they're going to feel a bit like a modern person dressed up in fancy clothes. If the good guys all do that while the bad guys adhere to different philosophical stances, now you're adding an implied moral dimension to the result.
And I suspect that for most stories, it's that ethical dimension of philosophy where this influence becomes most obvious and, at times, problematic. Protagonist does a bad thing, but it gets brushed off because they've got a good heart and that makes it okay? The story is presenting a philosophical argument, whether the author thinks of it that way or not. When the chips are down and a character has to make a hard decision, which way do they jump? Will they bend or break a principle to help someone in need? Will they sacrifice their own desires for the sake of upholding that principle? This is the stuff of deep personal drama, and simply recognizing it as such -- and thinking about what stances the various answers would express -- can result in more powerful stories, rather than simple ones where the supposed hard choice is really a no-brainer.
But especially on that ethical front, it's going to be difficult to write a story that endorses a philosophy you, the author, do not support. Deontology, for example, is the field that looks at ethics from the perspective of obedience to rules . . . and for many of us, that rapidly leads to "lawful evil" territory. We'd have a hard time writing a sincere story in which the protagonist virtuously obeys a terrible order because their duty requires it -- not as anything other than a tragic ending, anyway. It could be the basis of a villain or an antagonistic society, though, and in fact we often deploy these elements in exactly that fashion.
So even if you don't have a degree in philosophy, just dabbling your toes in the shallow end of that ocean-sized pool can help you become more aware of what message your worldbuilding and plot are sending. And that, I think, is worth it!
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Neanderthals were the world's first innovators of fire technology, tiny specks of evidence in England suggest. Flecks of pyrite found at a more than 400,000-year-old archaeological site in Suffolk, in eastern England, push back archaeologists' evidence for controlled fire-making and suggest that key human brain developments began far earlier than previously thought.
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