The political economy of speculative fiction
In early October Androids and Assets had the pleasure of speaking with author, Karl Schroeder.
Karl is the author of many books and short stories. The most recent is Stealing Worlds an excellent near-future novel full of incredible ideas and a fun action-y, mystery-ish story. It’s available from Tor Books and is well worth reading.
We spoke to Karl about economics and capitalism and the future. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.
This week we’re joined by local comedian, Mav. We talk about Mav’s recent show Last Days on Krypton. A comedy based around the climate crisis and collective action as the only real, lasting solution to this crisis.
Mav talks about committing a Green 9/11, which we understand to be the collective uprising of working people to overthrow capitalism. In a non-violent way, of course.
During the episode, Mav encourages us to listen to the show, What’s Left. In particular the episode on the Green New Deal, it can be found here.
A brief conversation with Anne Charnock at Dublin 2019.
Our previous briefs with V.E Schwab and Kate Sheehy can be found here and here.
A short, between-session conversation with Victora “V.E.” Schwab at Dublin 2019.
The second and third WorldCon briefs will be posted on Wednesday and Friday.
We did a couple of short, hot takes. Or at least lukewarm takes. We were going to do one on Black Panther and then remembered we did an entire episode on it.
Tell us we’re wrong, we dare you. Tell us your hot takes. We can fight about it.
The nature of Trill symbiosis is explored when a Klaestron commando legal team tries to kidnap Jadzia Dax for alleged treason committed by Curzon, the prior Dax host.
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The master Kobliad criminal-scientist Rao Vantika is presumed dead after an inmate transport fire, but his wily pursuer Ty Kajada is not so sure.
We talk with Rick Harp, host of Media Indigena, about indigenous cultures, particularly those in the place now called Canada, the Hugo Awards, colonialism, The Walking Dead, and economic development of indigenous peoples the world over.
This podcast was recorded some time ago. We apologize if any of the information it contains is out-of-date.
In this episode we discuss the following materials. Please check them out, and support these amazing content(text) creators:
Media Indigena Round Table at mediaindigena.com
Metis In Space – an excellent podcast that is unapologetically indigenous, unabashedly female & unblinkingly nerdy.
Kim Tallbear – Native American DNA Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science.
Rebecca Roanhorse – Author ofTrial of Lightning and Your Authentic Ingenious Experience.
Cherie Dimaline – Author of The Marrow Thieves.
Cutcha Risling Baldy – Why I Teach The Walking Dead in my Native Studies Classes.
Clearing the Plains – James Daschuk
Indigenous Comiccon – An international collection of events
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.
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