Irregularity Author:Jared Shurin (Editor) Irregularity is about the tension between order and chaos in the 17th and 18th centuries. During the Age of Reason, the world’s greatest minds named, measured and catalogued the world around them. Men and women from all walks of life dedicated themselves to questioning, investigating, classifying and ordering the natural world. They ... more »promoted scientific thought, skepticism and intellectual rigour in the face of superstition, intolerance and abuses of power. These brave thinkers dedicated themselves and their lives to the idea that the world followed rules that human endeavour could uncover. They brought order and discipline to the universe--except where they didn’t--what if they were wrong?
Irregularity collects fourteen original stories from extraordinary literary voices, each featuring someone--or something--that refused to obey the dictates of reason: Darwin’s other voyage, the secret names of spiders, the assassination of Isaac Newton and an utterly impossible book. These stories showcase the Age of Reason in a very different light.
Contents include:
Irregularity illustrated by Gary Northfield, inspired by paintings provided by the National Maritime Museum.
Irregularity cover shows "Resolution", artwork by Howard Hardiman.
Fairchild's Folly / Tiffani Angus
A Game Proposition / Rose Biggin
A Woman Out of Time / Kim Curran
The Heart of Aris Kindt / Richard de Nooy
Footprint / Archie Black
An Experiment in the Formulae of Thought / Simon Guerrier
Irregularity / Nick Harkaway
Circulation / Roger Luckhurst
The Voyage of the Basset / Claire North
The Assassination of Isaac Newton by the Coward Robert Boyle / Adam Roberts
Animalia Paradoxa / Henrietta Rose-Innes
The Last Escapement / James Smythe
The Darkness / M. Suddain
The Spiders of Stockholm / E. J. Swift
Afterword by Sophie Waring and Richard Dunn, Head of Science and Technology at Royal Museums Greenwich.
The anthology Irregularity published to coincide with the Ships, Clocks and Stars exhibition at the Royal Maritime Museum taking place in 2014, part of Longitude Season--a celebration of the 300th anniversary of the Longitude Act, and a steampunk show at the Royal Observatory.