The Orthogonal Bet: Novelist Robin Sloan’s Love for Books with Maps on the First Page

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Hello, and welcome to the ongoing mini-series, The Orthogonal Bet, a show that explores the unconventional ideas and delightful patterns that shape our world.

Host Samuel Arbesman, Complexity Scientist, Author, and Scientist in Residence at Lux Capital.

In this episode Sam speaks with Robin Sloan, novelist and writer and all-around fun thinker. Robin is the author of the previous novels, Mr Penumbra’s Twenty Four Hour Book Store and Sourdough, which are both tech-infused novels, with a sort of literary flavor mingled with a touch of science fiction. That’s why Sam was so excited by Robin’s brand new third novel Moonbound, where he goes for broke and writes a sprawling science fiction tale set in the far future.

In this episode, we explore how Robin built this far future and how he thinks about world-building, an exercise regimen for your imagination, science fiction and fantasy more broadly, and of course, novels with maps. And Lord of the Rings obviously makes an appearance as well.

But Moonbound also touches on AI in some really thoughtful and thought-provoking ways, and Robin has also been an early experimenter and adopter of language models. They get into all of that too, talking about AI, the nature of creativity, storytelling, and so much more.

Episode Produced by Chris Gates

Music by George Ko & Suno