Exurb1a
Role: Author of The Fifth Science (out-of-universe). Present in Introduction and Notes on Why Stuff Got Written as a first-person narrator. Era: Real-world. Writing from Bulgaria; Ch. 15 — Notes on Why Stuff Got Written is explicitly written from Sofia, and Ch. 10 — Water for Lunch was written in Melnik in mid-June 2018.
Summary
British sci-fi author and YouTuber. Self-describes as a devotee of Panpsychism. The premise of this book came to him while reading David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks, when he wondered what it would look like for a wandering consciousness to travel into the future. He signs himself “Ex.” in the Introduction.
Appearances
- Ch. 01 — Introduction: frames the book.
- Ch. 15 — Notes on Why Stuff Got Written: per-story commentary and a closing meditation on mayflies and ancestry.
Stated influences
- David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks — wandering spirits; seeded Ch. 03 — For Every Dove a Bullet.
- China Miéville, Embassytown — hyperspace tolerance; informs Ch. 08 — The Lantern.
- Schopenhauer — epigraph on Ch. 09 — The Want Machine.
- Black Mirror, “White Bear” — coincidental resemblance to Ch. 13 — The Caretaker.
- Carl Jung — epigraph at end of Introduction (“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious”).
Related
Open questions
- none at scaffold stage