Coffee Break

Looking back and moving forward

Please, make yourself comfortable. Coffee for you? What do you mean, double cream? And a giant cookie? Sure, okay, if there’s ever a time to indulge, this is it. ‘Tis the season, after all.

I’m sure you’ll see plenty of ‘best of 2024’ posts flutter past during the coming week. Secretly, I like them (but I will deny this if anyone ever asks). I thought I’d seize the moment to play a delightful grinch and pre-emptively write my own scattered retrospective on a year of writing and reading.

Of course, I want to hear from you too! What was the best thing that happened to you in 2024? What was the best book you read?

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Your favorites

Here are the three Subtle Sparks posts that did best in 2024. This is a bit of guesswork because, even though I can check the stats in my dashboard, the posts haven’t been up for equally long. I’m fairly confident about number one, though.

The scramble for first place is not even close—sex robots win hands down. In terms of likes and reads, this post performed almost twice as well as number two.

Sex Robots and the Future of Physical Intimacy

Second place goes to my parable on slowness, with thanks to the sloth and the Greenland shark. I did not expect this one to do as well as it did.

The Sloth and the Greenland Shark

Third place is for anonymous sex in the middle of a crowded dance floor, or what lek mating has to do with the posturing in nightclubs, and why the disco problem plagues evolutionary psychology ‘influencers’.

Lek Mating and Why (Most) Nightclubs Suck

Notable mentions for recent posts on viruses and zombies that did quite well, but haven’t had as much time as the top 3 to collect views and likes.

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Elsewhere

I’ve written a few essays and stories that appeared elsewhere this year, with one more coming as we count down to 2025.

Non-fiction

• An essay for manyloops on what happens when AI begins to eat AI-generated content as training data. (First appeared on Subtle Sparks!)

• A guest blog for the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association on ‘voice’ in writing.

• An essay for Clarkesworld Magazine on lucid dreams, dream hacking, and companies that want to plant ads in your dreams.

• An essay for Clarkesworld Magazine on IVF, polygenic embryo screening, and superbabies.

Fiction

• A tiny science fiction story, Mirror Test, in Crepuscular Magazine on macroscopic quantum superposition as the foundation for a new justice system. Or, let me scramble your brain in fewer than 250 words.

• A chunky YA science fiction story, Solaris and Riptide, in Frivolous Magazine about an immersive gaming mystery, high-school awkwardness, finding your tribe, and (maybe?) actual AI.

• A short, bittersweet body horror story, Pieces (scroll to page 30), in The Groke that you probably shouldn’t read if you’re squeamish and just had breakfast.

• [Coming before 2025] A fantasy story, Butchered Tongue, in Heartlines Spec, about a mother-daughter heartbreak in a world where language is a weapon (and lullabies can spur revolutions).

Also, stay tuned — I’ve had some good news recently about stories planned for 2025…

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My favorites

I’ve read a bunch of books this year. Shocker, I know. It’s an almost even split between fiction and non-fiction, with a slight edge for the former. Here are a few that I enjoyed, in no particular order:

Fiction

• The Vegetarian by Han Kang (literary fiction): a small book by the most recent Nobel laureate for literature. It is a story written in sparse prose about a woman who decides to go vegetarian and spirals into madness (or does she?).

• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (contemporary fiction): a young female-male duo of game developers make a hit game and deal with the industry’s sexism, the pressure to develop more games, and each other. (Zevin plays around very well with the structure in different chapters.)

• Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado (magical realism): a short story collection that veers from magical to creepy, often while exploring how the world sees women(‘s bodies) and how it tries to control them.

• Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky (science fiction): a rebellious ecology professor is banished to a labor camp on an exoplanet where evolution has taken symbiosis to the next level. Sign me up!

• After World by Debbie Urbanski (science fiction). an AI reconstructs the story of the last living human and develops feelings along the way. A delightful non-chronological puzzle of a novel in which subtle changes in language tell a story too.

Non-fiction

• The Expectation Effect by David Robson (psychology): on how our prior expectations (can) affect outcomes in health, sleep, performance, etc. Placebo, nocebo, and beyond.

• Doppelganger by Naomi Klein (technology, culture): uses the doppelganger idea from literature to explore the effects of social media, conspiracy theories, and increasing polarization, including genocides. Truly outstanding book.

• Why We Love by Anna Machin (biology, neuroscience): on the science and neurobiology of different types of love — romantic, parental, platonic, religious…

• Invisible Rulers by Renée DiResta (social media, culture): explores social media discourse during elections, Covid, etc. to analyze how influencers and algorithms create bespoke realities that are increasingly separated from facts. Great companion book to Doppelganger.

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Up, up

Here’s what my subscriber graph for 2024 looks like:

Looks good, doesn’t it? But don’t be fooled; it’s slow growth. I’m closing in on three years here and have a number of subscribers equivalent to what celebs or well-known writers collect within 3 minutes of setting up.

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And away

All this looking back makes me want to glance ahead. That’s dangerous because I don’t know if I’ll like what I’ll find. I have a talent for catastrophizing, you see. Talents number two and three: self-doubt and rumination. Also known as the killer combo.

Fortunately, I have learned to (sometimes) trick myself enough to find the glimmer in the gloom. Over a month ago, writer Tim Lott posted this Note:

It’s been lingering in my brain ever since. I don’t have a career in fiction and just glancing at the publishing industry tells me that’s exceedingly unlikely. At the same time, I have received some signs lately that my fiction is not too bad and I am (always) questioning what Subtle Sparks is, what it is for, and who it is for.

To be honest, squishing myself into a weekly posting schedule feels like putting another hamster wheel next to the ‘daily life stuff’ hamster wheel. That sounds exhausting. Worse, it sounds like a job. Subtle Sparks is, and will (very likely) always be, a passion project. Setting yourself a weekly posting schedule is a good strategy to build a writing habit. But I already have a writing habit. I’ve been writing professionally and recreationally since before Subtle Sparks. To me, writing is my brain taking a big, soothing breath — I’ll suffocate if I can’t do it.

So, for 2025, my newsletter resolution is to give each post the time it needs and to give my other writing the time it deserves. Sometimes, that will mean skipping a week (or two); sometimes that will mean a short post, a long one, a lyrical one, or an idea-dense one. Each one will be what it needs to be to bring the thoughts within alive. Expect biology, brains, books, and (bio)tech, blended into a semi-literary smoothie of wordplay and curiosity.

Subtle Sparks will remain a place for the weird, the wicked, and the wonderful.

Thank you so much for tagging along.

See you soon,

Gunnar

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Subtle Sparks will take a holiday break for the rest of 2024. I wish you all the squishy, jolly coziness you can handle. May 2025 bring you joy, awe, and boundless love.