{"id":21442,"date":"2013-08-02T00:01:46","date_gmt":"2013-08-02T04:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=21442"},"modified":"2014-11-21T07:19:19","modified_gmt":"2014-11-21T12:19:19","slug":"forbes-talks-to-warren-ellis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2013\/08\/02\/forbes-talks-to-warren-ellis\/","title":{"rendered":"Forbes<\/em> talks to Warren Ellis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Warren Ellis has a new novella out (that I haven’t read yet) and talks to Alex Knapp<\/a> about the new work and other topics:<\/p>\n

In Dead Pig Collector<\/em>, the process of disposing of a body is fairly well detailed. How much research did you do for that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Four or five hours. Believe it or not, a lot of people seem to spend time talking on the internet about getting rid of bodies. And now they\u2019re all on PRISM-generated watchlists. And so am I.<\/p>\n

One of the things that\u2019s fascinating about your work is that it explores subcultures that seem like fantasy, but very much exist in real life. I know, for example, a lot of the cultures you explored in Crooked Little Vein<\/em> are horribly true. What interests you about them?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think one of the bigger lessons the internet has taught us is that \u201cniche\u201d or \u201csubculture\u201d are a lot bigger than anyone ever thought. And, frankly, if it\u2019s on the internet, the biggest and widest communication and information system in the world, then it\u2019s not really a subculture any more. If it\u2019s accessible by hundreds of millions of people, then it\u2019s as mainstream as it gets. More people visit body modification websites than watch some tv shows, and yet we think of television as the most mainstream, monocultural thing in the world. How can you not be interested in them? They are the shape of the world to come.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Also infused in a lot of your work is what appears to me anyway to be a deep and abiding love of space travel. What is it about space that fascinates you so much?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Space is the place. We currently keep all our breeding pairs in the same place, which is kind of a stupid way to run a species. Also, it\u2019s full of stuff we haven\u2019t seen yet, which should be impetus enough to go and look.<\/p>\n

What do you think about the current state of space travel, especially now with China and now private companies getting into the mix?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I find it all sadly boring. I mean, yes, the Chinese programme looks awfully promising, but it\u2019s just re-running the prime NASA years in fast-forward \u2014 doing things we already did, all over again, in a compressed timeframe, with what is probably fairly similar technology. I\u2019m interested to see what they do once they attain the Moon. And, again, the private stuff \u2014 Virgin is just finding a new way to replicate Alan Shepard\u2019s sub-orbital lob. That said, Elon Musk\u2019s projects are getting more interesting by the day. I\u2019m starting to wonder if he doesn\u2019t have a full-on James Bond villain long-game scheme. Wouldn\u2019t that be great? Right up until, you know, the orbital death ray platforms.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Warren Ellis has a new novella out (that I haven’t read yet) and talks to Alex Knapp about the new work and other topics: In Dead Pig Collector, the process of disposing of a body is fairly well detailed. How much research did you do for that? Four or five hours. Believe it or not, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,28,44],"tags":[262,1006,58,85],"class_list":["post-21442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-media","category-space-science","tag-culture","tag-elonmusk","tag-internet","tag-sf"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-5zQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21443,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21442\/revisions\/21443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}