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misterjay's review
5.0
Warren Ellis, particularly in his non-fiction mode, falls rather handily into the "grumpy uncle" category of writers. By which I mean, I don't always agree with what he says, but I love to hear him say it. His carefully constructed, self-depreciating, doused-in-strong-drink persona add an elegant, fun and funny frame to observations about the now.
Cunning Plans is a brief collection of such observations, essentially the print versions of talks Uncle Warren has given at various conferences over the past few years. The talks contained in this volume are variations on a theme - the future doesn't exist, science fiction is always about now, and it is far better to create the future than to predict it. With whiskey.
Fans of Ellis' won't find anything unusual or unexpected here. Truthfully, if you read Ellis' newsletter or any of the various blogs he has maintained over the years, you might already be familiar with a lot of the ideas presented here. But the keyword in that sentence is presentation. If you haven't had a chance to hear Ellis' speak, and you want to hear Uncle Warren proclaim about the non-existent future, Cunning Plans is a lovely substitute.
Cunning Plans is a brief collection of such observations, essentially the print versions of talks Uncle Warren has given at various conferences over the past few years. The talks contained in this volume are variations on a theme - the future doesn't exist, science fiction is always about now, and it is far better to create the future than to predict it. With whiskey.
Fans of Ellis' won't find anything unusual or unexpected here. Truthfully, if you read Ellis' newsletter or any of the various blogs he has maintained over the years, you might already be familiar with a lot of the ideas presented here. But the keyword in that sentence is presentation. If you haven't had a chance to hear Ellis' speak, and you want to hear Uncle Warren proclaim about the non-existent future, Cunning Plans is a lovely substitute.
grandgranini's review
1.0
I'm a big fan of Warren Ellis' comics writing and was surprised to find that he seems to have reinvented himself as some kind of technological visionary. This ebook is a collection of various talks he gave over the last couple of years and they are not very good. I found the general tone very vague and meandering and my initial impression didn't improve when he repeatedly name dropped notable gasbags Bruce Sterling and Terence McKenna. I wish he'd stick to comic books and I can't for the life of me understand why a cranky curmudgeon like Ellis would want to be on the TEDx circuit.
ramonnogueras's review
5.0
Esta es una recopilación de conferencias y charlas de Warren Ellis, y generalmente tratan sobre futurismo, pero cuando rascas un poco te das cuenta de que como muy buen dice él mismo, en realidad es un análisis del presente. Porque la ciencia ficción en realidad siempre trata sobre el momento en el que fue escrita.
Su brevedad implica que las ideas potentes que contiene pegan aún más fuerte. Hay párrafos verdaderamente fantásticos. Merece la pena.
Su brevedad implica que las ideas potentes que contiene pegan aún más fuerte. Hay párrafos verdaderamente fantásticos. Merece la pena.
morporum's review against another edition
5.0
Old white man with eight teeth and a tin cup of rain,telling the truth
Thoughtful, funny, little Molotov cocktails of bright ideas and incendiary anger. This book will make you want to think about the future again.
Thoughtful, funny, little Molotov cocktails of bright ideas and incendiary anger. This book will make you want to think about the future again.
stopsatgreen's review
4.0
Very short collection of talk transcripts, largely on the subject of folklore and technology. Very interesting, contains some brilliant connections between topics you might not consider could be connected.
amatern's review
5.0
Insightful and funny
Quickly devoured, Ellis' short collection of talks and essays is a must read for his fans and for folks interested in "the future".
Quickly devoured, Ellis' short collection of talks and essays is a must read for his fans and for folks interested in "the future".
strickvl's review
4.0
Interesting thoughts from an interesting person. A quick read, but lots to ponder.
red_dog's review
4.0
Meandering thoughts, but always interesting and relevant - if you're at all engaged in this vast technological screw up we like to call the modern world, give this collection a go.
ahmetasabanci's review
5.0
A must read. And a must re-read. Also a must re-re-read.
You got the point.
You got the point.
ricardoreading's review
5.0
Nobody makes me as excited and fearful of the future as much as Warren Ellis. And bless him for that.
Full review forthcoming.
EDIT:
Warren Ellis is a writer of things.
These are things he has written about the future.
Warren writes a lot of things about the future.
I could read Warren's writing about the future for the rest of my life and never complain about it.
And that’s despite the fact that Ellis has the curious ability to make me both dread the future and to utterly welcome it with open arms. It's one of his most peculiar and endearing abilities as a writer. The man contains multitudes. Most of which live a few years ahead of the rest.
(Warren Ellis is, I should mention, a goddamn wizard.)
Ultimately though, he makes me excited for it. I dare anyone to read any of the essays contained within this volume, especially the ones where Warren is essentially grabbing the reader by the neck and forcing them to look out at the World whilst screaming, "We are living in the future now, you silly bastard. The world is amazing and awe-inspiring and terrifying and it is of vital importance that you acknowledge this if you want us to survive as a species" and not feel at least a little bit of a spark.
(If that sounds a bit abrasive, you can blame him. He's the one who came up with the whole Internet Curmudgeon persona.)
The capital F Future is not everything Warren writes about here. These talks also act as a sort of funnel through which he poured a lot of recent obsessions out of his head. Getting them down on paper to be better understood. "This is always the writer’s cunning plan," writes Ellis, in the introduction to this volume, "writing things down so that you can see them properly." These obsessions include, but are not limited to: the role of science fiction (it's not meant to predict the future, damn it) history and folklore (important things, damn it), and -- most peculiarly -- magic (a real thing, damn it).
Ellis talks about magic a fair bit in this book, which was curious and fascinating, him being such a pragmatic fellow. I appreciated the musings, however, as it is a subject in which I have been progressively getting interested for a couple of years now. Although I don't mean magic in the fantasy Harry Potter/Hocus Pocus sort of way (although I would actually like that to be part of our actual reality as well); I mean magic as another lens through which we can view the world. Stories to make sense of this weird psychedelic experience we call Life. (It's all Grant Morrison's fault, I reckon.)
Ellis doesn't talk about magic in the hocuspocusharrypotter way either. At least not entirely. He employs magic as a metaphor in a couple of different ways. Firstly, as a way of making sense of all our increasingly overwhelming technology.
"Technology is the process of replicating the condition of magic. That’s the paradigm.
Look at a Segway and tell me it’s not the world’s shittiest witch’s broomstick. We only wanted jetpacks because we couldn’t make magic carpets work.”
(Likening technology to magic is essentially old hat by now, I know, but the way Ellis goes at it is compelling and fascinating. And so, so entertaining.)
And secondly -- and perhaps more importantly -- he uses it as a metaphor for the past. Another surprising but compelling theme found in these talks.
The future is nothing if we don't learn anything from the past. Especially if we don't learn from all the witches and the shamans and healers of old, who Warren describes as the original pioneers of technology, the original hackers. This is another peculiar leitmotif that runs through a couple of the talks here, and Warren actually, honest-to-goodness, makes a pretty compelling case for it somehow. He manages to draw a fairly clear and distinct line between these cunning folk of the past and the technological pioneers of today -- the test pilots of the future, to use one of Warren's own phrases. It seems far-fetched but actually starts to make sense the more you think about it. Because what are modern day tech developers if not Explorers of the Unknown? What are the Fogs of the Future and the Clouds of the Internet if not proverbial Spirit Worlds, accessible via our myriad of modern talismans?
“From deep within his cunning Reality Distortion Field, Steve Jobs insisted that the iPad was magic. He used the word. This is why. You could point at a magic mirror with a finger and cause mysterious and wonderful things to happen, as if you were a wizard. Magic clings to the digital world, as if the digital world were actually The Other World.”
It's an interesting and attractive way of looking at the the world. It’s also one of those ideas that, once it gets in your head, it’s very difficult to look at things any other way.
There is actually a word for this. Explainers is the term Neil Gaiman used to describe those writers who had a knack for explaining the world to itself in clever and unforgettable ways. He said this of Douglas Adams specifically, but it could apply to other writers of the fantastic like Terry Pratchett. It certainly applies to Warren Ellis. He uses these disparate themes of time and magic and technology to explain our current world.
This, by the way, is what Warren argues is the true purpose of science fiction. Science fiction has no business predicting the future. Science fiction has only ever talked about the present, viewed through the kaleidoscopic lens of the future.
Metaphor is the key word. History and time and magic and technology. These are very real things but they are also the metaphors we use to talk about our current condition, our current position in time and space.
"The central metaphor is magic. And perhaps magic seems an odd thing to bring up here, but magic and fiction are deeply entangled, and you are all now present at a séance for the future. We are summoning it into the present. It’s here right now. It’s in the room with us. We live in the future. We live in the Science Fiction Condition."
Underneath all of this heavy bric-à-brac, however, Warren's writing has always been, at its heart, about the people. We are the ones living through history, after all. We are the ones performing the magic and the rituals; we hold the talismans. We are the ones who will inherit the future (if we don't kill ourselves first and leave the planet to the cockroaches).
Ellis has oft been described as a journalist, and I also share that view, but I am also always reminded of something he said in Captured Ghosts, the documentary about his work:
“The job of the writer is – I think – the same as the job of the journalist, which is to stand up and say, ‘Here’s where I am today, and here’s what I think it looks like.’ But the writer I think has an extra responsibility to say, ‘Look up, because you’re here too.’”
And this, for me at least, is what his writing's all about. He wants you to look. Backwards, because history is important, if we are ever to learn, but up and ahead as well, because that way leads to... well, the rest of our brief, ridiculous, beautiful lives. So just look.
Look, you tremendous bastards.
"I’d love to be able to tell you a story about the future, but I’d rather tell you a story that counts. I’d rather give you a sense of where you might come from, because you need to know where you’ve been to know where to go. The future is your story to tell."
Full review forthcoming.
EDIT:
Warren Ellis is a writer of things.
These are things he has written about the future.
Warren writes a lot of things about the future.
I could read Warren's writing about the future for the rest of my life and never complain about it.
And that’s despite the fact that Ellis has the curious ability to make me both dread the future and to utterly welcome it with open arms. It's one of his most peculiar and endearing abilities as a writer. The man contains multitudes. Most of which live a few years ahead of the rest.
(Warren Ellis is, I should mention, a goddamn wizard.)
Ultimately though, he makes me excited for it. I dare anyone to read any of the essays contained within this volume, especially the ones where Warren is essentially grabbing the reader by the neck and forcing them to look out at the World whilst screaming, "We are living in the future now, you silly bastard. The world is amazing and awe-inspiring and terrifying and it is of vital importance that you acknowledge this if you want us to survive as a species" and not feel at least a little bit of a spark.
(If that sounds a bit abrasive, you can blame him. He's the one who came up with the whole Internet Curmudgeon persona.)
The capital F Future is not everything Warren writes about here. These talks also act as a sort of funnel through which he poured a lot of recent obsessions out of his head. Getting them down on paper to be better understood. "This is always the writer’s cunning plan," writes Ellis, in the introduction to this volume, "writing things down so that you can see them properly." These obsessions include, but are not limited to: the role of science fiction (it's not meant to predict the future, damn it) history and folklore (important things, damn it), and -- most peculiarly -- magic (a real thing, damn it).
Ellis talks about magic a fair bit in this book, which was curious and fascinating, him being such a pragmatic fellow. I appreciated the musings, however, as it is a subject in which I have been progressively getting interested for a couple of years now. Although I don't mean magic in the fantasy Harry Potter/Hocus Pocus sort of way (although I would actually like that to be part of our actual reality as well); I mean magic as another lens through which we can view the world. Stories to make sense of this weird psychedelic experience we call Life. (It's all Grant Morrison's fault, I reckon.)
Ellis doesn't talk about magic in the hocuspocusharrypotter way either. At least not entirely. He employs magic as a metaphor in a couple of different ways. Firstly, as a way of making sense of all our increasingly overwhelming technology.
"Technology is the process of replicating the condition of magic. That’s the paradigm.
Look at a Segway and tell me it’s not the world’s shittiest witch’s broomstick. We only wanted jetpacks because we couldn’t make magic carpets work.”
(Likening technology to magic is essentially old hat by now, I know, but the way Ellis goes at it is compelling and fascinating. And so, so entertaining.)
And secondly -- and perhaps more importantly -- he uses it as a metaphor for the past. Another surprising but compelling theme found in these talks.
The future is nothing if we don't learn anything from the past. Especially if we don't learn from all the witches and the shamans and healers of old, who Warren describes as the original pioneers of technology, the original hackers. This is another peculiar leitmotif that runs through a couple of the talks here, and Warren actually, honest-to-goodness, makes a pretty compelling case for it somehow. He manages to draw a fairly clear and distinct line between these cunning folk of the past and the technological pioneers of today -- the test pilots of the future, to use one of Warren's own phrases. It seems far-fetched but actually starts to make sense the more you think about it. Because what are modern day tech developers if not Explorers of the Unknown? What are the Fogs of the Future and the Clouds of the Internet if not proverbial Spirit Worlds, accessible via our myriad of modern talismans?
“From deep within his cunning Reality Distortion Field, Steve Jobs insisted that the iPad was magic. He used the word. This is why. You could point at a magic mirror with a finger and cause mysterious and wonderful things to happen, as if you were a wizard. Magic clings to the digital world, as if the digital world were actually The Other World.”
It's an interesting and attractive way of looking at the the world. It’s also one of those ideas that, once it gets in your head, it’s very difficult to look at things any other way.
There is actually a word for this. Explainers is the term Neil Gaiman used to describe those writers who had a knack for explaining the world to itself in clever and unforgettable ways. He said this of Douglas Adams specifically, but it could apply to other writers of the fantastic like Terry Pratchett. It certainly applies to Warren Ellis. He uses these disparate themes of time and magic and technology to explain our current world.
This, by the way, is what Warren argues is the true purpose of science fiction. Science fiction has no business predicting the future. Science fiction has only ever talked about the present, viewed through the kaleidoscopic lens of the future.
Metaphor is the key word. History and time and magic and technology. These are very real things but they are also the metaphors we use to talk about our current condition, our current position in time and space.
"The central metaphor is magic. And perhaps magic seems an odd thing to bring up here, but magic and fiction are deeply entangled, and you are all now present at a séance for the future. We are summoning it into the present. It’s here right now. It’s in the room with us. We live in the future. We live in the Science Fiction Condition."
Underneath all of this heavy bric-à-brac, however, Warren's writing has always been, at its heart, about the people. We are the ones living through history, after all. We are the ones performing the magic and the rituals; we hold the talismans. We are the ones who will inherit the future (if we don't kill ourselves first and leave the planet to the cockroaches).
Ellis has oft been described as a journalist, and I also share that view, but I am also always reminded of something he said in Captured Ghosts, the documentary about his work:
“The job of the writer is – I think – the same as the job of the journalist, which is to stand up and say, ‘Here’s where I am today, and here’s what I think it looks like.’ But the writer I think has an extra responsibility to say, ‘Look up, because you’re here too.’”
And this, for me at least, is what his writing's all about. He wants you to look. Backwards, because history is important, if we are ever to learn, but up and ahead as well, because that way leads to... well, the rest of our brief, ridiculous, beautiful lives. So just look.
Look, you tremendous bastards.
"I’d love to be able to tell you a story about the future, but I’d rather tell you a story that counts. I’d rather give you a sense of where you might come from, because you need to know where you’ve been to know where to go. The future is your story to tell."
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