“Tech titans claim the genre inspired them. But all they’ve done is graft their politics onto stories of a better future.”
Science Fiction
Posted inEditor's Pick
Murderbot, She Wrote
“Martha Wells created one of the most iconic characters in 21st-century science fiction: Murderbot, reluctant savior of humanity. Then she faced an existential threat of her own.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
From Silicon to Slime
“Claire L. Evans on imagination as a form of computation, and the endless entanglement of our biological reality.”
Posted inNonfiction
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, our editors recommend notable features and essays by Katie Barnes, Rachel Handler, Alex Hawkins, Lila Shapiro, and Raksha Vasudevan.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Neal Stephenson Finally Takes on Global Warming
“His superscience this time isn’t a metaverse or a space colony. It’s engineering to address an imminent threat.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Culture, Highlight, Quote Posts, Quotes
‘We Told You So’: Revisiting the Bleak, Pandemic-Filled World of 12 Monkeys, 25 Years Later
“Gilliam does believe that the end of society may soon be upon us. The question for him is: What shape will the new one take?”
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, Highlight, Quote Posts, Quotes
William Gibson on How Science Fiction Portrays Reality
“Every fiction about the future is like an ice-cream cone,” Gibson says, “melting as it moves into the future.”
Posted inBooks, History, Nonfiction, Story
In the Age of the Psychonauts
Three psycho-spiritual “events” of the 1970s — involving Philip K. Dick, Robert Anton Wilson, and Terence and Dennis McKenna — had a strange synchronicity.
Posted inStory
‘If an Animal Talks, I’m Sold’: An Interview with Ann and Jeff Vandermeer
Ann and Jeff Vandermeer discuss talking animals, the weird/fantasy divide, and the ‘rate of fey’ as an organizing principle in their new anthology of classic fantasy.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Story
First Contact
Sarah Watts details how science fiction shaped her family, her religion, and her own self-image.