I know, people here like to celebrate that sparse dozen or so sellers who are offering stuff on Nostr, none of which is on my personal shopping list. But has anyone tracked how many sellers have dropped off from here in the last year or two? I can think of two or three just like that.
You can cheer on 'Price Up/Down' all you want, but the fact is, we're failing miserably right now at building a circular economy based on Bitcoin. And that means we're also failing to live up to Bitcoin's promise of freedom. And if we can't make it happen here on Nostr, then nowhere.
Not that we look back in 15 years and think, yeah, that was a nice collective dream back then, but it just didn't work out.
Translation:
Muslim authors are increasingly enriching the science fiction landscape, creating stories that combine speculative technology with independent philosophy, folklore, and lived experience.
This subgenre, sometimes referred to as Islamic science fiction, explores visions of the future shaped by faith, cultural diversity, and alternative historical narratives, challenging stereotypes and expanding the creative horizon beyond traditional Western frameworks. By Laila Massoudi
Authors like Somaiya Daud, Saladin Ahmed, and Deena Mohamed use the genre to address themes such as migration, justice, and identity, often incorporating Arabic, Persian, or South Asian influences.
Their works challenge the boundaries between science, spirituality, and society, offering nuanced visions of a future where Muslim voices shape technological progress, ethical dilemmas, and interplanetary narrative worlds.
German or German-speaking authors have so far barely explored this field. Now, N. Alp Uçkan has made a start with "The White Ram Lamb" (self-published).
"The White Ram Lamb" is a political novel set in the future, which designs a dystopian near-future and consistently uses it as a mirror of current social and technological developments.
At the center is Rashid, an unspectacular, devout city dweller who initially functions unnoticed in the grid of a digitally controlled surveillance state.
His journey from the regulated megacity, through the underground of the "Crows" to the hidden mountain community of the "Wise Men", structures the novel as a story of initiation and awakening.
The world of the city is densely and vividly constructed: social scores, ubiquitous sensors, AI-supported administration, and militarized police units form the taken-for-granted background of a seemingly stable order.
Particularly successful is how the book breaks this normality with small irritations – for example, through the recurring symbol of the white ram lamb or through the marginal figures who have already withdrawn from the system.
The "Crows", a loose community of cyberpunks and dropouts, are less romanticized rebels than people with edges, breaks, and their own blind spots. Here, the text gains social and psychological depth.
With the change of location to the valley and the mountain fortress, the tone changes noticeably. The "Wise Men of the Mountain" live a mix of monastic discipline, resistance, and spiritually founded strategic work. The novel does not depict this community as a sectarian place of redemption, nor does it see it as a perfect counter-world.
It regards them as an ambivalent experiment: here, hard work is done, argued, and doubted – and at the same time, a culture grows that intertwines spirituality, technology, and political calculation.
Rashid's removal of his implant, the training, his integration into concrete tasks, and finally his role as a leader mark a comprehensible inner development.
The book is strong whenever technology and transcendence directly meet: when prayer and ritual ablution take place in the midst of a high-tech infrastructure, or when neuroflux traps and data cores are intertwined with concepts of responsibility, willingness to sacrifice, and otherworldly hope.
The spiritual dimension remains not abstract but is closely connected to everyday life, physicality, and community practice. This distinguishes the text from many secular cyberpunk variants.
In terms of language, the novel relies on prose that convinces, especially in passages about nature and architecture: the smog ceiling of the city, the wide valley in late or Indian summer, the cool marble architecture of the mountain remain in memory.
Action sequences – raids, escapes, the final server room operation – are clearly structured and comprehensible, without slipping into pure effect logic.
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