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| Illustration by Kazimir Lee Iskander |
The wonderful folk at Fixi Novo, Poskod.my and the organisers of #WORD: The Cooler Lumpur Festival 2013 asked Malaysian six writers to envision Kuala Lumpur in 2063. The result is a collection of six science fiction stories published online at FUTURA and it asks the very salient question:
“Is our future bright? Beautiful? Bureaucratic? Bent on destroying us? Find out with FUTURA“
Three stories have been published so far and my story “Future Gardens” includes illustrations by the very talented Kazimir Lee Iskander.
“Future Gardens” is a noir-influenced and cautionary tale of the extremes a large corporation may go to in order to preserve a very precious resource in the future: Viable living space. Michael Crichton’s 1973 film Westworld was an inspiration and I did consider inserting a paraphrase of the film’s tagline “Boy, have we got a vacation for you!” into the story.
Another influence which sneaked in under the radar was Corey Hart's 1985 hit, "Sunglasses At Night". Streaming music while you write is a double-edged sword.
