The Knowers
(2013)(A book in the Electric Literature's Recommended Reading series)
A Story by Helen Phillips
"In a sense, we're either thinking about death or we're ignoring it," writes Benjamin Samuel, Co-Editor of Electric Literature, in his introduction to this issue of Recommended Reading, "In the world of 'The Knowers' people have the choice to make that pervasive ticking clock tick just a little louder. The information is not prophecy, it doesn't come from an oracle or the supernatural, but a machine that appears as humdrum as an ATM. Reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut's story '2 B R 0 2 B,' in which human's are invincible until they volunteer to die, death—or at least its arrival—is a little less mysterious thanks to the macabre triumphs of science. But unlike Vonnegut's story, Phillips' characters have not defeated death, they've only spoiled the surprise."
About the Author:
Helen Phillips is the author of the novel-in-fables And Yet They Were Happy and the children’s adventure novel Here Where the Sunbeams Are Green. She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award, the Italo Calvino Prize in Fabulist Fiction, The Iowa Review Nonfiction Award, the DIAGRAM Innovative Fiction Award, and the Meridian Editors’ Prize. Her work has recently appeared in Tin House, and has been featured on NPR’s Selected Shorts, and is forthcoming in Slice and the flash science fiction anthology Gigantic Worlds. She teaches at Brooklyn College and lives in Brooklyn with her husband, artist Adam Douglas Thompson, and their baby daughter.
About the Publisher:
Electric Literature is an independent publisher working to ensure that literature remains a vibrant presence in popular culture. Electric Literature’s weekly fiction magazine, Recommended Reading, invites established authors, indie presses, and literary magazines to recommended great fiction. Once a month we feature our own recommendation of original, previously unpublished fiction, accompanied by a Single Sentence Animation. Single Sentence Animations are creative collaborations: the author chooses a favorite sentence and we commission an artist to interpret it. Stay connected with us through email, Facebook, and Twitter, and find previous Electric Literature picks in the Recommended Reading archives.
Genre: Science Fiction
About the Author:
Helen Phillips is the author of the novel-in-fables And Yet They Were Happy and the children’s adventure novel Here Where the Sunbeams Are Green. She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award, the Italo Calvino Prize in Fabulist Fiction, The Iowa Review Nonfiction Award, the DIAGRAM Innovative Fiction Award, and the Meridian Editors’ Prize. Her work has recently appeared in Tin House, and has been featured on NPR’s Selected Shorts, and is forthcoming in Slice and the flash science fiction anthology Gigantic Worlds. She teaches at Brooklyn College and lives in Brooklyn with her husband, artist Adam Douglas Thompson, and their baby daughter.
About the Publisher:
Electric Literature is an independent publisher working to ensure that literature remains a vibrant presence in popular culture. Electric Literature’s weekly fiction magazine, Recommended Reading, invites established authors, indie presses, and literary magazines to recommended great fiction. Once a month we feature our own recommendation of original, previously unpublished fiction, accompanied by a Single Sentence Animation. Single Sentence Animations are creative collaborations: the author chooses a favorite sentence and we commission an artist to interpret it. Stay connected with us through email, Facebook, and Twitter, and find previous Electric Literature picks in the Recommended Reading archives.
Genre: Science Fiction
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