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Matthew Blakstad | author

Home
Books
Sockpuppet
Lucky Ghost
Fallen Angel
The Martingale cycle
Work in progress
Blog
Reviews
News
Events
Events calendar
Off book
About me
Biog
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Electronicana

"In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite." — Paul Dirac

Matthew Blakstad
2 July 2016

MEAN TWEETS: Crime fiction and the internet

Matthew Blakstad
2 July 2016
MEAN TWEETS: Crime fiction and the internet

Today’s internet is a wild frontier where new ways of doing harm are being invented every day. If crime fiction is to keep pace with the world, it needs to embrace technology, not shy from it.

Comment
Matthew Blakstad
7 May 2016

VERIFY: ‘Do you know who I am?’ in The Independent

Matthew Blakstad
7 May 2016
VERIFY: ‘Do you know who I am?’ in The Independent

The government's launch of an online identity management system echoes the ill-fated 'Digital Citizen' project from my novel Sockpuppet. I wrote a piece about this for The Independent. 

2 Comments
Matthew Blakstad
6 April 2016

BOT: ‘Je Suis Tay’ on Pornokitsch

Matthew Blakstad
6 April 2016
BOT: ‘Je Suis Tay’ on Pornokitsch

I couldn't resist writing something about the very public meltdown of Microsoft's chatbot, Tay. It's just too close to the events in my novel, Sockpuppet. You can read my piece, 'Je Suis Tay', on Pornokitsch.

1 Comment
Matthew Blakstad
12 March 2016
Essay

BACON: An engineer of the silver screen

Matthew Blakstad
12 March 2016
Essay
BACON: An engineer of the silver screen

If you fire up Google and type in the words 'Bacon number' followed by an actor's name, it'll give you (surprise!) that actor's Bacon number. I recently tried this on myself. The result took me in a wholly unexpected direction.

Tagged: Kevin Bacon, Ralph Tabakin, Barry Levinson, The young Sherlock Holmes, Network theory, Engineering

Comment
Matthew Blakstad
18 December 2015
Essay

PULP: Why I still love paper

Matthew Blakstad
18 December 2015
Essay
PULP: Why I still love paper

Each time I finished a draft of my first novel, Sockpuppet, I went onto the self-publishing site lulu.com and ordered a physical paperback copy. A limited edition of one, in a plain white cover, with me its only reader.

Tagged: Fiction, Sockpuppet, Digital music, ebooks, Neal Stephenson, The Social Life of Information

2 Comments
Newer Posts
Older Posts

Electronicana is where I blog about culture and tech. Also tech culture. And cultural tech, once I work out what that is.


Past posts

Featured
Step on board the Ghost Train 🚂 👻
5 August 2017
Step on board the Ghost Train 🚂 👻
5 August 2017

To celebrate the publication of Lucky Ghost, I recently set out on the Ghost Train - a whistle-stop tour of some of the finest book blogs on the internet.

Read more →
5 August 2017
Crimes against reality
17 March 2017
Crimes against reality
17 March 2017

Crimes against reality don’t usually end in bloodshed. Their ammunition is public opinion, their shotgun barrel the internet; and the victims are people’s reputations. When they’re committed, these crimes seem trivial, even ludicrous – but their consequences can be lethal. 

Read more →
17 March 2017
Let’s make 2017 better by writing our own fake news
20 January 2017
Let’s make 2017 better by writing our own fake news
20 January 2017

On the day of Donald Trump's inauguration, surely now’s the time to start making up the news we actually want to see this year?

Read more →
20 January 2017
FEEL: Technology writing and the senses
21 October 2016
FEEL: Technology writing and the senses
21 October 2016

I write stories about technology, and how it affects our experience of the world. Which is why, last month, I contributed to a series of blog posts about writing and the senses. This might seem a contradiction to many people. After all, doesn’t technology dampen our senses? 

Read more →
21 October 2016
TOMORROW: Why predictions of the future are usually wrong
5 August 2016
TOMORROW: Why predictions of the future are usually wrong
5 August 2016

There was a brief spell, between the white heat years of the 1960’s and the gaudy disaster of the 1980’s, when futurology blossomed. This was the final gasp of a post-war love affair with centralised planning. 

Read more →
5 August 2016
MEAN TWEETS: Crime fiction and the internet
2 July 2016
MEAN TWEETS: Crime fiction and the internet
2 July 2016

Today’s internet is a wild frontier where new ways of doing harm are being invented every day. If crime fiction is to keep pace with the world, it needs to embrace technology, not shy from it.

Read more →
2 July 2016
VERIFY: ‘Do you know who I am?’ in The Independent
7 May 2016
VERIFY: ‘Do you know who I am?’ in The Independent
7 May 2016

The government's launch of an online identity management system echoes the ill-fated 'Digital Citizen' project from my novel Sockpuppet. I wrote a piece about this for The Independent. 

Read more →
7 May 2016
BOT: ‘Je Suis Tay’ on Pornokitsch
6 April 2016
BOT: ‘Je Suis Tay’ on Pornokitsch
6 April 2016

I couldn't resist writing something about the very public meltdown of Microsoft's chatbot, Tay. It's just too close to the events in my novel, Sockpuppet. You can read my piece, 'Je Suis Tay', on Pornokitsch.

Read more →
6 April 2016
BACON: An engineer of the silver screen
12 March 2016
BACON: An engineer of the silver screen
12 March 2016

If you fire up Google and type in the words 'Bacon number' followed by an actor's name, it'll give you (surprise!) that actor's Bacon number. I recently tried this on myself. The result took me in a wholly unexpected direction.

Read more →
12 March 2016
PULP: Why I still love paper
18 December 2015
PULP: Why I still love paper
18 December 2015

Each time I finished a draft of my first novel, Sockpuppet, I went onto the self-publishing site lulu.com and ordered a physical paperback copy. A limited edition of one, in a plain white cover, with me its only reader.

Read more →
18 December 2015
SNAP: When life imitates book design
5 November 2015
SNAP: When life imitates book design
5 November 2015

Today, 5 November 2015, marks another milestone in my journey to publication – the so-called cover reveal. The good folk at Hodder & Stoughton just unveiled the front cover design for my debut novel, Sockpuppet.

Read more →
5 November 2015
GO NE: My text adventures
4 October 2015
GO NE: My text adventures
4 October 2015

A few years back, my parents moved out of the house they'd lived in since my early teens. I visited them as they were clearing out the house's many nooks and crawl-spaces. My mother had extracted a box containing relics of a whey-faced computer nerd who lived in the house until the late 80s. 

Read more →
4 October 2015
ODD: on genres, categories and why they shouldn't matter
5 September 2015
ODD: on genres, categories and why they shouldn't matter
5 September 2015

‘Nothing odd will do long…’ said Doctor Johnson; and you might think this a point well made, except that he went on to say, ‘…Tristram Shandy did not last.’

Read more →
5 September 2015
REBUILT: what the Six Billion Dollar Man tells us about belief in the future
17 August 2015
REBUILT: what the Six Billion Dollar Man tells us about belief in the future
17 August 2015

So the Hollywood douchebag machine has green-lit a movie called The Six Billion Dollar Man, with Marc Wahlberg attached. Readers of my vintage will recognise this as the latest in a string of reboots of those trashy old TV shows that time grants the unwarranted adjective classic. 

Read more →
17 August 2015
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