2026-08-10

Re-read Neuromancer as prep and research for a Once and Future Sun

What incredible prose wound around a story as tight and sparse as its expression. Genius and not only of its genre.

So today I'm back.

A: It's so goddam hot.

B: Again.

A: Yes, again.

B: I wonder why …

A: Why do you always ask that?

B: Well, i think it is worth asking about, no?

A: You've always got an agenda.

B: What do you mean?

A: I know what you're getting at?

B: You do?

A: Yes, of course. You want me to say it's about climate.

B: I don't.

A: Yes, you do. Whenever it gets hot now you say its about the climate.

B: Well they are related?

A: We had a drought back in 1976? I remember twenty years ago we had no rain all summer. That wasn't climate change was it!

B: But there's a trend.

A: [Not really listening] Some years it's hot, some years it rains a lot, some years it's cool. The weather varies, that's what I'm saying.

B: You're right.

A: Thank-you.

B: And … climate change can make hot summers more likely. Don't you notice every year now they are saying this is is one in a hundred or one in a thousand year summer.

A: Well …

B: That doesn't make sense that year after year it's one in a hundred. One in a hundred should mean one in a hundred, right?

A: [defensively] I've not sure I'v noticed …

B: Well the last three years haven't they all been really hot? We never had 30 degrees before here have we?

A: I don't know

B: Well I don't remember it. [Pausing]

A: [Quieter] I'm worried.

B: Really?

A: Yes, what's happening?

B: Well we've been pumping CO2 into the atmosphere for two centuries and especially in the last fifty … and not doing anything about it …

A: That's not what I mean …