September events and books at the intersection of science and art.

BOOK

“Hieroglyph: Stories & Visions for a Better Future.” Edited by Ed Finn and Kathryn Cramer. Preface by Neal Stephenson. William Morrow. $27.99. 560 pages.

The science fiction author Neal Stephenson has proposed that our civilization has recently suffered from a lack of ambition when it comes to engineering. In this anthology, which he calls a “conscious throwback to the practical techno-optimism of the Golden Age,” he pushes his fellow writers to “start pulling their weight and supplying big visions” like Isaac Asimov’s robots or Robert A. Heinlein’s rocket ships. The hefty volume opens with a bold story by Mr. Stephenson himself, about a man who sets out to build a 12-mile-tall steel structure in the desert, exploring real questions about how such a tower would survive in the cold, windy, electrically charged upper atmosphere. In a playful response, Bruce Sterling closes the book with a story that flashes forward to a time when most of humanity has been launched into orbit from the tower.

PAPER

“Outbreak,” by Rogan Brown. Entered in the National Open Art Exhibition, Somerset House, London. Opens Sept. 18. Free.