This week Futures is delighted to welcome back Preston Grassmann with his fresh take on La Serenissima in Venice, Version 9.0. Preston is no stranger to Futures, having previously introduced us to The vermilion market, shown us Broken maps of the sea and spent Midnight in the cathedral of time. You can catch up with his work by on Twitter. Here, he takes look at what inspired his latest tale — as ever it pays to read the story first.

Writing Venice, Version 9.0

The initial idea for Venice, Version 9.0 began with the concept of multiple cities existing in the same space. The virtual cities and their occupants would be constrained by the physical dimensions of the actual space around them, but the objects, architecture and the people inside them could be modelled on different aesthetics (and have significant variations in colour, texture and design).  

How ‘real estate’ might give way to a form of ‘virtual estate’, governed and built by creators, was something I had never seen in stories before, so I’m currently working on this idea in a longer form.

Finally, the drowned-city version of Venice may seem appropriate here, reflecting the narrator’s state of mind, but more than likely, he’s just a fan of Ballard.

I hope you enjoy the story.