The political economy of speculative fiction
Lapsis is a 2020 movie from Noah Hutton that takes on the gig work economy. It is timely and dark. There are many ideas in Lapsis and we picked out labour organizing and monopolies. We cannot recommend you seeing this movie strongly enough.
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C.S. Malerich joins us to talk about her novella, The Factory Witches of Lowell, a story about an early unionization effort that gets a magical boost. The most important part of the struggle, though, is still solidarity.
You can get The Factory of Witches of Lowell through our Bookshop affiliate link, we get a small kickback, if you do.
Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar – This is How You Lose the Time War
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky – Hard to Be A God
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Our guest this week is Olav Rokne of the Hugo Book Club to talk about unions and organized labour, or rather the lack of it, in science fiction. While representation of unions in science fiction is pretty unusual, it’s moved from anti-union hostility to more of a benign neglect.
See our show notes for more information.
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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