How to Write Science Fiction That Isn’t ‘Useful’
Robin Sloan, the author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, discusses his new short story for The Atlantic.
This interview contains spoilers for “The Conspiracy Museum.” Read the story here.
“The Conspiracy Museum,” a new short story by Robin Sloan, appears as part of “Shadowland,” The Atlantic’s project about conspiracy thinking in America. To mark its publication, Sloan and Ellen Cushing, the special-projects editor at the magazine, discussed the story over email. Their conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
The piece is written in the form of an address—notes and all—for a
