The political economy of speculative fiction
The boys get down to brass tacks about Andy Weir’s 2021 book, Project Hail Mary, and how it explains our inability to address climate change.
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We are looking back on the 1989 classic How to Get Ahead in Advertising. For a deep dive on the intersection of psychology and commerce we are joined by Hugo nominated Blogger and long time friend of the show Olav.
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Marshall and Stephen are joined by the dynamic and entertaining John Scalzi to talk about his new book, The Kaiju Preservation Society.
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Taking a well worn path to the orchard of problematic Netflix content, the androids and assets team get angry as they lazily pluck the low hanging fruit that is American political discourse. Please enjoy this review of the 2021 sci-fi comedy Don’t Look Up.
Happy New Year… It probably won’t get worse.
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Marshall and Steve sit down with the brilliant and ever didactic Cat Rambo to discus their newest book You Sexy Thing. Out now.
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Stephen and Marshall get excited talking about the Hugo short listed short stories in part two of our three part series. Today we cover “A Guide for Working Breeds” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad and “Metal Like Blood in the Dark” by T. Kingfisher
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A conversation with author Louis Evans, in which we discuss his recent short story Flash Crash, published by the good people at Escape Pod. We talk commerce, nuclear war, and the nature of value.
If you want to read/hear Flash Crash follow this link: https://escapepod.org/2019/06/06/escape-pod-683-flash-crash/
In this interview Louis Recomends the following texts:
Fondly Fahrenheit by Alfred Bester
China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. McHugh
The Sorcerer Of The Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson
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The show notes for our episode Labour Unions in Science Fiction.
Imagining the future of organized labour (part one of three) – Hugo Book Club – The essays that inspired us to invite Olav onto the show.
The Future of Work – Our past episode on Wired’s series The Future of Work.
A people’s future of the United States – Edited by Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams – A great collection of short stories that neglected to include stories about unions; this is a mark against it but not enough to not read it.
Autonomous – Annalee Newitz – A novel that is is about the subversion of labour rights. Explicit labour unions are not mentioned in the book. For more labour representation Look for Annalee Newitz’ new novel The Future of Another Timeline coming out in September 2019.
All Systems Red – Martha Wells – The first in the Murderbot Diaries. Doesn’t mention unions specifically but features a lot of work and unsafe working conditions. These workers could use a union.
Orbital Decay – Allen Steele
For the Win – Cory Doctorow
Company Town – Madeline Ashby
Hunger Makes the Wolf – Alex Wells
Another Girl, Another Planet – Lou Antonelli
Our interview with S.B. Divya author of great works such as Runtime and Contingency Plans for the Apocalypse and co-editor of Escape Pod. Find her work at www.eff-words.com
Some works we discussed:
The Revolution Brought to You by Nike by Andrea Phillips published in Fireside Magazine. Also available in audio from Escape Pod.
Cat Pictures Please by Naomi Kritzer published in Clarkesworld.
Utopia, LOL? by Jamie Wahls published in Strange Horizons.
Runtime by S.B. Divya published by Tor.com.
Dread Nation by Justina Ireland published by Balzer + Bray.
Infomacracy by Malka Older published by Tor.com.
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Welcome to Season 2 of Androids and Assets! Thanks for being here with us! We’ve decided to make Luc Besson our traditional season opener so today we’re talking about The Fifth Element. It’s a movie that requires societal supervision so be sure to watch it with a diverse group of friends.
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