Literature review of speculative/science fiction texts on project's themes displayed in chronological order of published date. Some of these texts have been recommended by students, teachers, and scholars involved with the project. The literature review is ongoing.
Date published: 1895
Text type: short-fiction
Broad theme: dystopia ethics mining-extraction technology
H.G Well’s 1895 novella begins from the perspective of a narrator who is attending a dinner at the house of a man only known as the Time Traveller. This man presents a talk where he believes that time travel is possible and that he has used a machine to travel in time to the year 802, 701 and tells the story of his travels to his dinner guests. This recount tells of a journey into a future London where humanity has divided into two separate beings, the placid Eloi and the underground dwelling Morlocks. The Time Traveller explores this future world, seeking to understand how humanity ended up this way as well as retrieve his time machine which had been taken. In order to get his time machine back, he delves into the tunnels of the Morlocks, where he discovers that they feed on the Eloi. The Time Traveller gets back possession of his time machine by tricking the Morlocks and travels further into the future, watching the decline of the earth until life ceases to exist, before returning to his own time to tell his dinner guests about his adventures. The novella then returns to the perspective of the narrator, who mentions that the Time Traveller was gearing up to go on another adventure, which he was yet to return from.
Wells’ novella speculates on the future for humanity, critical of the excess of the Victorian Age and speculating on the potential dangers of a society that prioritises capitalist expansion. The division of the Morlocks and Eloi as underground and above ground beings extrapolates on the racial capitalism of our current (and past 400 years). As such, The Time Machine offers a chance to consider the long term impacts of how humans choose to live with one another, as well as speculating on the legacy of 'humanity.'
Date published: 1948
Text type: short-fiction
Broad theme: dystopia ethics
Shirley Jackson’s short story about an unnamed town in rural America that undergoes a lottery that ends in the stoning of a community member caused furore on release and is still a poignant discussion regarding the purpose of traditions and the capacity for people to turn on each other. The community of the small town, not remembering the reasons why the lottery takes place beyond it being a tradition, draw lots with a member of the community with the black dot being sacrificed for the good of the town. This dark reality is contrasted by the idyllic setting Jackson provides, making the events of the short story all the more shocking.
This short story offers plenty of opportunities to discuss the nature of scapegoating, the way in which communities of people operate and their propensity for violence. The dehumanising present in the end of the short story, where the Davy Hutchinson is given pebbles to stone his own mother, highlights the dangers of scapegoating. Also, Jackson’s criticism of the thoughtless adherence to traditions provides scope for reflection on the actions of our own society.
Date published: 1951
Text type: short-fiction
Broad theme: ethics technology virtual-reality-internet-of-things
Ray Bradbury’s short story follows a family who has fitted their house out to be fully automated, to the extent that household tasks are automatic and the bulk of the parenting of the two young children is done by the house itself. The nursery system creates a sensory experience for the children that borders on reality, supposedly to assist the children through neuroses. The parents become disturbed when their children’s nursery is fixated on the African Veldt, with lions stalking the room, but it is noted that what the nursery shows is but a reflection of the mind of the children.
The parents' suggestion to bar the nursery and switch off the automation of the house is rebuked by the children who end up breaking in to the nursery. The Hadley’s psychologist friend David McClean is brought in to investigate and warns the parents against locking Wendy and Peter out of the nursery. George turns off all the machinery in the house, leading the children to lock their parents in the nursery and when Mr McClean returns, the children are sitting in the nursery having tea and the parents are nowhere to be found, but there are vultures flying overhead.
Bradbury’s short story examines our overreliance on technology and has continued to be relevant as technology has increasingly taken over our lives. The commentary on the use of technology to replace parental responsibility is still relevant and carries a warning about the detrimental effects of technology on human relationships. Further, Bradbury’s short story shines a light on the purpose and function of the family unit in the modern age and how technology has reshaped this.
Date published: 1959
Text type: book
Broad theme: bio-techno-warfare dystopia ethics gender more-than-human space
Starship Troopers is set 700 years in the future from its publication and it follows the journey of Juan ‘Johnny’ Rico, beginning with a raid on an alien planet. The book then flashes back and tracks Johnny’s time graduating from high school in Buenos Aires and thinking of joining the military. This decision estranges him from his parents and Johnny goes through a gruelling and brutal training camp where corporal punishment is common and strict discipline is enforced. While Johnny was training, the war with an alien arachnid type species escalated – with his home city being obliterated and his mother dying- and Rico and his fellow soldiers are called on to fight. The Battle for Klendathu, the alien home world, is an abject failure and Rico is reassigned. After reassignment, he rises up through the ranks and enlists in officer training. During this time, he reconciles with his father. Rico is assigned to lead a platoon during Operation Royalty, a raid to capture the intelligent caste of the alien species. The novel ends with Rico as a part of a new attempted invasion of the alien home world.
Heinlein’s novel is as much about looking forward as it is about a commentary on his own times. Situated in the Cold War, the book makes reference to the global tensions of the time and glorifies the military and the notion that a strong military is integral to a nation’s survival. This text, in contrast with more modern speculative fiction, offers interesting discussion on the prevalence of gendered stereotypes and expectations in the genre. Further, the focus on political discussions and ideas in the text, particularly on that of militarisation and discipline, provide interesting discussion points on how humanity aims to interact in future engagement with intelligent life outside of Earth.
Date published: 1968
Text type: book
Broad theme: bio-techno-warfare dystopia ethics mining-extraction more-than-human space technology
One of seminal SF author Philip K Dick’s most famous novels, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? follows bounty hunter Rick Deckard who is tasked with hunting down and ‘retiring’ Nexus-6 model androids who escaped from extra-terrestrial colonies to live on a post-nuclear war Earth. This future Earth has been blighted by World War Terminus and the United Nations desires to send uncompromised humans to off world colonies, incentivising their departure through the gifting of androids as slaves. The novel documents Deckard’s tracking of the androids as the lines of humanity and android become blurred for him. The novel also follows John Isidore, who meets one of the fugitives and decides to aid them as they hide from Deckard. Deckard is driven to retire the androids not out of any loyalty to his job, but to be able to acquire a live animal as a status symbol that he hopes will make him happy.
That Deckard begins to struggle to perform his task and pushes himself on due to the debt burden of the goat he purchased speaks to the relationship between the individual and work and the lack of fulfilment it may bring. Further to this, the character of Rachel Rosen and her unsuccessful attempts to convince Deckard to abandon his mission which includes them falling in love, further challenges the notion of humanity.
This novel continues to be relevant as technological advances question the distinction between human and machine. Importantly, in the text the future world where menial tasks are performed by machines leads not to liberation but depression.
Lastly, the extinction of many animal species and the commodification of authentic animals speaks not only to our relationship to our environment, but also a loneliness that results from a disconnection from the natural world.
Date published: 1968
Text type: film-tv
Broad theme: dystopia ethics more-than-human
A group of astronauts awake from hibernation and crash into a lake on a planet they believe to be far away from Earth. The year is 3978, two millennia since the astronauts departed on their journey but they have barely aged. They travel until the find some humans who are unable to speak and they are captured by gorillas, with protagonist Taylor shot in the throat impacting his ability to talk. His colleagues are also captured with one killed. Chimpanzees Zira and Galen save Taylor and Taylor discovers that the apes rule and humans are hunted and used in scientific experiments. Taylor escapes but is captured again, with Dr Zaius wanting to know how Taylor came to their society. Taylor and his female companion Nova are liberated again and they are taken to the Forbidden Zone with Taylor hopeful that he can prove that he is from another planet. Dr Zaius catches up to them and Taylor threatens him, so Dr Zaius agrees to enter a cave with him to prove him wrong. Inside the cave, Taylor finds remnants of human civilisation and Dr Zaius warns him against continuing on his search for answers. Zira, Galen and Zira’s nephew Lucius – who aided Taylor and Nova’s escape – are charged with heresy and the humans continue their search, with Taylor eventually stumbling upon the ruins of the Statue of Liberty. Upon seeing this, he realises that not only has he travelled into the future rather than being on another planet, but that the destruction of the humans was caused by themselves.
The film explores the consequences of the anthropocene and humanity’s propensity towards self-destruction. That the ape society is a theocracy also offers plenty of discussion points about the way in which religion and the state intersect in our own world. It is also a reflection of the fears of the time of its creation and given that further adaptations continue to be made in the 21st century speaks to the fact that the threat of nuclear war and a future decimated by human error is a concern that continues to cause anxiety today.
Date published: 1977
Text type: short-fiction
Broad theme: bio-techno-warfare dystopia ethics gender more-than-human sciences
The story starts off with Alan, a scientist who’s working on ridding Colombia of a particular parasite and thinking of his wife Anna and reading one of her letters. Anna’s letters include newspaper clippings which highlight how there’s a rise of organized murders of women in the US by seemingly deranged men. There’re postulations that there’s a biological reason that the men have gone mad. However, the rage in the murderous men are supported by misogynistic religious movements surging across the globe called Sons of Adam, who following the garden of Eden example believed that women are inherently evil and need to be destroyed.
Alan recognizes the disease manifests by turning male sexual urges into violent urges when he himself has violent thoughts about Anna. He attempts to isolate himself from Anna and his daughter (and eventually kills his daughter when she won’t accept Anna’s warnings). Alan then kills himself. After most of the world’s women are killed adult men begin killing boys. Anna flees north to Canada and learns that the femicide was instigated by aliens who, similar to the ‘Screwfly solution’ forced the human race to destroy themselves before taking over.
The story offers opportunities to speculate on how humans treat other species as well as think about the violence women actually live with, in our current society.
Date published: 1984
Text type: short-fiction
Broad theme: bio-techno-warfare disease-famine dystopia ethics gender more-than-human
“Fears” is set sometime in the future in the fallout of the invention of a pill that lets parents choose which binary gender their children are. It’s told in a matter of fact tone which makes it particularly disturbing. The narrative of the story takes place on a day where the main character – a woman dressed as a cis male – goes into town to gather supplies and hires a bodyguard (even males do this) and converses with him about the current state of the world.
Once given the ability to choose the gender of a child with just a pill (rather than other more brutal forms of infanticide) world over overwhelming chose to have biologically male children who are then also assigned male at birth. This produces a world where numbers of female children fall precipitously, and those who identify as female are also marginalized. As a result, cis females are perceived as chattel, their lives are heavily monitored and they are refused contraception, and can’t leave their husbands unless a stronger man takes them.
The bodyguard offers insights on the past in relation to the perceived constraints that women now live under and argues that it wasn’t much better in the past. And that men never liked women. Further, the bodyguard argues that it should be illegal to look like what ‘you’re not,’ in his response to trans women in the park.
The story offers plenty of opportunities to speculate on how medical advancements geared to pre-existing bias could further social inequalities between genders and marginalize gender non-conforming people. While at the same time acknowledges how things may not have been all that different in the past (present).
Date published: 1985
Text type: short-fiction
Broad theme: ethics gender more-than-human space
The short story centres around a ‘Terran” humanoid male called Gan, and his humanoid family who live in a violent symbiotic relationship with an alien species called the Tlic. Gan’s entire family has had a life-long relationship with a Tlic government official called T’Gatoi, a multi-limbed yet wormlike creature. T’Gatoi, like other Tlic, procreate through implanting grubs into Terrans. The Terrans are kept in an opioid state through eating eggs, and thorough being stung by Tlic. At one point in the story a Terran male is ‘opened’ by T’Gatoi so babies can be ‘birthed’ from his flesh. The story is nauseating to read and brings up issues of enslavement, colonization, and queer interspecies relationships, and difference across multiple registers where the alien is familiar. Gan, who has been groomed to be a host since birth eventually agrees to allow T’Gatoi to impregnate him – which allows him some agency within a system that demands compliance.
Date published: 1987
Text type: short-fiction
Broad theme: disease-famine ethics
Octavia Butler’s short story “The Evening and the Morning and the Night,” is narrated by Lynn, a young woman suffering from Duryea-Gode Disease (DGD). DGD is a fictional genetic disease (we learn in the Afterward that Butler based the disease on Huntington’s disease, phenylketonuria, and Lesch-Nyhan disease).
In the story, both of Lynn’s parents we learn also had the disease which is dormant until after puberty and people with the disease present normally until it kicks in. DGD generates an impulse for self-destruction and to harm others. Lynn’s story demonstrates how those with DGD spend most of their lives in anticipation for the disease to start. People with DGD have a specific diet they use to stave off symptoms, are believed by non-DGD people to be particularly good at the sciences: genetics, biochemistry etc., possibly due to the terror the disease instils in themselves and others.
Because the DGD can set in at any point, and because those with the disease eat strange (dried food) and have emblems making them recognizable to others, they are marginalized. DGDs also shy from others because of this. They have an ongoing dilemma: to eat normally and not wear an emblem and appear normal. However, if the disease kicks in they will harm themselves (and potentially others) and need help forcing many of them to wear the emblem although it stigmatizes them for the safety of themselves and others.
Generally speaking, DGDs live and are friends with other DGDs. Questions of whether they should reproduce are important points of reflection in the story. If the government chose to sterilize all DGDs the disease would also be eliminated.
The story raises crucial considerations of how people with genetic diseases, and acquired diseases are treated in our current society. And how government sanctioned sterilization circulates as an idea in certain instances. The narrative also provides an insight into the emotional, physical, social, and psychological trauma that people ‘marked’ by disease deal with. Allegorically, the notion of a disease could spiral out to include other forms of marginalization based on gender, race, religion, and ability.
Date published: 1987
Text type: book
Broad theme: bio-techno-warfare ethics more-than-human technology
The first book of Lilith's Brood trilogy tells the story of Lilith Iyapo, a human woman who wakes up on a space ship 200 years after a war that destroyed much of Earth. Lillith is chosen by the Oankali aliens a someone who will help them re-populate earth. The Oankali have a sentient space ship that responds only to their biochemical touch. They interbreed with off world species (in this case) humans that they meet through their travels around the universe. In order for humans to be able to access the Oankali’s ship, they need to genetically modify themselves to be more like Oankali.
The Oankali disagree with the inherent hierarchy in human relations – which is the main ‘disease’ humans suffer from. They seem to offer more egalitarian ways of living. Yet they are also seemingly fixated on rehabilitation and inclusion – which disability scholars may rightly find fault with and critique.
The story brings up issues of colonialism, genetics, hybridity, and interdependence. One of the overarching themes is a narrative of cure – in that the Oankali have the ability to isolate and cure various human diseases such as cancer but modify themselves and humans in the process. Another theme causes readers to question the idea of an essential self, because it is not only through breeding with the Oankali that new species are created, Lillith herself undergoes changes in her genetic make-up enabling her to speak with Oankali, interact with the ship, and awaken a group of humans. She becomes more-than-human much to the dismay of some other humans in the book who do not want to interbreed with intergalactic invaders.
Date published: 1990
Text type: book
Broad theme: gender sciences technology virtual-reality-internet-of-things
Perhaps the ‘founding’ steampunk novel. Set in Victorian England where the computers become a part of everyday life a century early. England’s Industrial Revolution and Imperialist movements get an extra boost in this alternative history. There’s no potato famine (so the Irish are quite content to support the new British regime; there’s a series of alternative governments in the US including a Republic of California and a Communist NYC). The plot centres around some punch cards that fit into a computer that people are willing to kill for. Some people think the cards will help determine gambling odds, but it turns out the cards proved theorems that in our history were not discovered until the 1930s (80 after the character of Ada Lovelace delivers a lecture on them in the novel). At the end of the novel it turns out that it’s been narrated by a computer that’s slowly becoming sentient. Interesting in that it’s co-written, experiments with alternative histories, and in a major text in Steampunk and raises questions about computers as authors and computers as sentient.
Date published: 1993
Text type: book
Broad theme: more-than-human technology virtual-reality-internet-of-things
Jeff Noon’s debut novel centres on a future Manchester, where collective dreaming is possible through the consumption of ‘feathers’ that link users into the world of Vurt. The protagonist Scribble and his gang – the Stash Riders – embark on a journey to rescue a member who was lost in the Vurt world. Desdemona, Scribble’s sister and lover, had become trapped in a feather called English Voodoo and the gang roams Manchester looking for the feather Curious Yellow that will free Desdemona, all the while chased by the police.
Noon’s Vurt is a world that has moved beyond the human – pure humans are rare as hybrid people have become common and becoming hybrid leads to further divisions in society. This, however, does not mean that humanity itself is lost. While Scribble, as he descends more and more into the world of Vurt becomes more nihilistic, hybrids like Tristan show love, care and compassion with a desire to help the Stash Riders.
The tale borrows from the journey of Orpheus from Greek mythology and challenges the reader’s perception of the reliability of the events. Noon explores the relationship of the individual to reality, as well as the challenges of addiction and loss. Further, the text offers the opportunity to consider the power of dreams and desires, as well as what defines group identity.
Date published: 1999
Text type: film-tv
Broad theme: bio-techno-warfare dystopia more-than-human technology virtual-reality-internet-of-things
The cyberpunk science fiction film classic The Matrix follows the journey of computer programmer Thomas Anderson (known also as Neo), who along with the majority of humanity, are trapped in a simulated reality based off the reality of the year 1999. Anderson – aided by a group of rebels from the present – is forced to confront this reality and accept the fact that humanity and machines had gone to war in the 21st century and that humanity had lost this war, thus meaning his reality in the matrix was an illusion. This journey of discovery is complicated through the presence of a prophecy of an individual called ‘The One’ who would liberate humanity, as well as the dogged pursuits of Agent Smith who ends up killing Neo, who then comes back from death, beating Agent Smith and warning the machines that he was coming after them.
The film’s pivotal moment where Mr Anderson is offered a choice between ignorance and knowledge highlights the central discussion of the film regarding the burden of knowledge; The Matrix's future is one so horrific for humans that many might choose to entertain ignorance of reality. The world of The Matrix offers a chance to not only consider a possible future, but to also reflect on the challenges for the viewer associated with speculating on the future and what to do with a particular version of the perceived future.
The film plays on the trope of the messianic figure who will save mankind and through this, the Wachowskis explore the ethics of humanity’s pursuit of technological advancements. The literal enslavement of humanity to power machines offers reflection on the figurative correlations that can be made to humanity’s potential over-reliance on technology.
Date published: 2001
Text type: book
Broad theme: dystopia sustainability technology
Mortal Engines is set in a world after a war the destroyed much of the planet, forcing innovation where some cities have become fully mobile – known as traction cities - and devour smaller cities and towns. On the traction city of London, Tom Natsworthy is an apprentice historian who accidentally gets caught between intruder to London, Hester Shaw and Thaddeus Valentine, who Hester attempts to assassinate. Caught up in this, Tom along with Hester are thrown off London and end up in the Hunting Ground, hoping to get back to London. The two are then pursued by the Stalker Shrike, who had raised Hester after Valentine had murdered her parents. They encounter Anna Fang and their fates are entwined. London Mayor Magnus Crome sends Valentine to destabilise the Anti-Traction League, who wants to use old tech from the Sixty Minute War to destroy the Shield Wall protecting the Anti-Traction League. Hester and Tom get caught up in the race to save the Shield Wall of Batmunkh Gompa that protects the sedentary societies of the Anti-Traction League as Thaddeus Valentine infiltrates the wall to destroy the fleet that could be used to fend off the incoming London. Hester and Tom go back to London, looking to destroy the weapon before it destroys the Shield Wall, with the weapon eventually misfiring after a scuffle and blowing up the city as Tom and Hester escape.
Reeve’s consideration of a post-apocalyptic future where resources are scarce and philosophies of governance like Municipal Darwinism compete with other forms of social structure is a novel and interesting way of considering how humanity would react to times of extreme pressure and scarcity. The text provides opportunities to also reflect on our propensity for war and conflict and the position of youth in challenging this paradigm. Further, this texts focus on history and documentation in an imagined future also opens up discussions on the importance of history and the way in which narratives of our past can inform the decision making of the future.
Date published: 2006
Text type: film-tv
Broad theme: climate-crisis dystopia ethics gender sovereignty sustainability
In a world facing extinction due to human infertility, economic collapse and war. The United Kingdom, one of the few functioning nations left, is receiving a lot of immigrants and in response to this imprisons and executes illegal immigrants.
The film follows former activist Theo Faron, who is kidnapped by a militant organisation, known as The Fishes, run by his former wife who asks him to escort a refugee woman Kee to safety with The Human Project, who are investigating how to make humans fertile again. Theo finds out that Kee is pregnant after defending her from capture and killing police officers who attempt to stop them. Theo finds out that Kee and her baby are to be used as a political tool by The Fishes and he escapes with Kee to his friend Jasper’s house. Japser helps the group to get to Bexhill, where a ship to take them to The Human Project will be docking. The Fishes catch up with them and Jasper stays, giving up his life to allow their escape. The arrive in Bexhill, a refugee camp, and Kee has the child as war breaks out between the military and the refugees. Theo helps Kee and her baby to escape, the film ending with them rowing to the boat.
The film considers the importance of reproduction to the purpose of the human species and the ethical dilemmas mass infertility brings. Rather than coming together as a species to try and look for solutions, humanity tears itself apart and the most vulnerable are exploited. The film offers discussion points regarding some of the more toxic aspects of leadership and its connection to male gender stereotypes, particularly with the murder of Julian as a way to force Theo’s growth. This ‘fridging’ of the female character and the way in which Kee is valuable because she is fertile gives many opportunities for criticism about traditional gender stereotypes and how they may be impacted by crisis.
Date published: 2008
Text type: film-tv
Broad theme: climate-crisis ethics more-than-human space sustainability technology
On an Earth ravaged by the greed of humanity that rendered the planet unliveable, the film follows the small robot Wall-E, one of the machines charged with repairing the world and making it habitable for people to return. Wall-E is dedicated to his job to clean up the planet and follows their daily routine until it is disturbed by the discovery of a seedling and the arrival of EVE, a robot sent by the last vestiges of humanity to see if they can return home. Fascinated by EVE, Wall-E follows after them until EVE finds the seedling and shuts down, transmitting their discovery to the far away Axiom where humanity waits. A rocket returns to collect Wall-E, and they follow stowing away on the ship. At this point the viewer is introduced to a humanity that has lost a sense of purpose as everyday things have been delegated to machines. AUTO, the machine who pilots the ship, attempts to get rid of the seedling and a rag tag band of humans and machines fight against AUTO. Wall-E and their allies are successful in placing the plant into the Holo-Detector, sending the ship back to Earth. In doing so, Wall-E is badly damaged but their connection to EVE saves them. The humans leave the ship, looking to restart life on Earth.
The film explores what is means to be truly human, as Wall-E seems to reactivate a sense of humanity in the people on the ship who have lost the positive traits associated with being a human. Further, environmental degradation and the impact of consumerist culture on the planet is a key concern of the film. Throughout, the fact that humanity needs the planet more than it needs us permeates as the hubris represented through the presence of BuyNLarge on Earth and the Axiom explores the consequences of unbridled capitalism. The film does however, offer the possibility of repairing the broken bond with the planet, providing points of discussion regarding how we may adapt our behaviour to avoid a future where the planet rejects our place on the planet.
Date published: 2012
Text type: short-fiction
Broad theme: anti-colonialism bio-techno-warfare ethics gender lgbtq
This story, set in postapoclyptic Guam is based around the experiences of Isa, a transgendered “Bridge.” The job of a Bridge is to keep one foot in the past and another in the future and be on the lookout for Fleets that may approach the island and bring ‘civilization.’ The story describes the fallout from an undisclosed war and how the island has been isolated ever since. Isa, like other Bridges before her remember the names of 1000s of dead and watch for the arrival of the fleet.
On a routine stroll she encounters man washed up on the island – she brings him back to her governors thinking she’s done a good deed – they are both drugged and she wakes up to find the man in a machine withdrawing memories from his mind. The same machine that was used to insert memories of the dead in hers. Turns out, each time she brings a member of the Fleet (any outsider) to the governors, she is rewarded with new names in her head but always forgets.
The story raises issues about sexual harassment and prejudice that Isa faces despite her esteemed position as Bridge. But Isa being transgendered does not drive the plot, although it’s an important aspect of her character. The main thrust of the story raises issues about contact and colonial violence that seem to be pressing up on the new Guam. The society’s urge to violence when people from the Fleet arrive is unsurprising given the history of colonization and war on Earth.
Date published: 2015
Text type: book
Broad theme: climate-crisis disease-famine ethics space sustainability technology
Beginning on the planet of Kerenza in the middle of a planetary attack, Illuminae is a collection of documents that follows two young protagonists, Ezra and Kady as they flee their planet. They are rescued and split on two different ships and the text is in part their journey back to each other. It is also existential crisis as the military ship, the Alexander, which is badly damaged in the fight to rescue the people of Kerenza, attempts to flee from the pursuing ship the Lincoln. Further to this, the artificial intelligence (called AIDAN) aboard the Alexander is compromised and orders the destruction of fellow ship the Copernicus – which Ezra is a part of - fostering rumours that the AI had gone rogue and was bent on the destruction of the remaining survivors. In the meantime, Kady uses her hacking skills to try to understand what happened, in the process finding out that the AI believed a disease that turned people into zombies was on board the Copernicus and that is why it had it destroyed. As both surviving ships try to deal with the growing threat of infection, an AI seemingly bent on killing people and a ship in pursuit, Kady and Ezra fight in their own way in order to seek for each other and the truth. As the Lincoln draws closer, Kady risks it all by travelling to the Alexander, which is infested with infection and works to resurrect AIDAN to get the weapons back online and save everyone on the Hypatia. Kady, believing Ezra to be dead, is successful and almost dies in the process but is saved. All of the information regarding the invasion and use of the bioweapon to release the virus is passed on, ensuring the people who died did not do so in vain.
The construction of the text alone makes it interesting for study, with the story being told through recovered documents and seemingly pieced together to tell the narrative. Also, the text explores the ethical decision-making of people when put in high stress situations, and the setting of space adds further weight to the gravity of the situations the people find themselves in. Further, humanity’s obsession with material wealth and war between mega-corporations speaks to the dangers of consumerism and puts into perspective the need to think laterally about consumption in the present and when humanity moves itself into space in the future.
Date published: 2015
Text type: book
Broad theme: anti-colonialism bio-techno-warfare ethics more-than-human space sustainability technology
These Africana-futurist novels centre around Binti, a teenaged math genius from the Himba tribe of future Namibia. The future Himba tribe maintain many of their current traditions in the future-world, but are also highly skilled technologically. Binti is from a long line of math-geniuses and is tapped to be the successor to her family’s lineage which is partially why although she’s been admitted to the best university in the galaxy, and is the first of her people to be admitted, her family does not want her to leave home.
Binti and its sequels as a whole could be read as one long coming of age novel replete with Binti running away to take a position at the university, interspecies hybridity, and a return home (only to take off again).
Themes that run through the novels are colonization, difference, and hybridity of species/even inter-stellar species. Binti’s personal power comes at first through her mathematical abilities and trance-like states she can induce through running numbers through her mind, a process she calls ‘treeing.’ In a treeing meditative state she becomes a master-harmonizer but her harmonizing doesn’t always bring peace. Throughout the novels she often finds herself in the middle of conflicts that she attempts to ameliorate and her harmonizing powers work to some degree but never bring absolute resolution. More than once she finds herself in the middle of interspecies slaughter.
Binti personally grows through her decision to leave home and her tribe, and through her becoming hybrid with other species (the Meduse), alien DNA (Zinariya), and even a living space ship (New Fish) that cures a fatal wound.
Date published: 2016
Text type: book
Broad theme: dystopia ethics sustainability technology
Shusterman’s novel is set in the near future, where humanity has advanced to the stage where technology allows them to be virtually immortal. Further to this, an artificial intelligence known as the Thunderhead, designed to love and care for humanity, begins to take over the governance of countries until the planet falls under the rule of this AI. This AI does believe that death is an important part of life, so a group of people called the Scythedom are charged with ending people’s lives.
The book follows two young protagonists – Rowan and Citra – as they train to become Scythes. They are educated by Scythe Faraday until he mysteriously disappears. Rowan and Citra are split up, going under the tutelage of two new Scythes. During this period, both are challenged in their perceptions about the role of a Scythe and their lingering concerns about the fate of their former tutor. They discover that Faraday is indeed alive and in hiding. Rowan ends up ‘gleaning’ his current tutor Scythe Goddard, who was a corrupted Scythe. At their final trial, Citra defeats Rowan – taking the name Scythe Anastasia - and on getting her ring punches Rowan, granting him immunity from death for a year. Rowan becomes Scythe Lucifer, hunting down corrupt Scythes who have betrayed their purpose and killing them.
This book provides the opportunity to discuss the nature of life and the position of death in giving life meaning. This leads into interesting ethical discussions about the way in which an artificial intelligence sees human life. Further, the fact that the protagonists who carry the moral weight in the text are typically younger and have not been corrupted by the adult world raises interesting points about the ways in which society is shaped by the compromises and excesses of adults.
Date published: 2017
Text type: short-fiction
Broad theme: sciences technology virtual-reality-internet-of-things
The story is set seemingly in our time at the beginning but then moves into an augmented-world. The plot follows the main character who quarrels with his daughter at a cabin in the woods, leaves and has a car accident which renders him a quadriplegic. From there his story follows his journey with an auxillery body that allows him to walk, to the decision to decapitate his head from his broken body altogether, to a white room where he can virtually re-create entire worlds to live in. His (tor)mentor and friend X, who saved him from the crash gives an analogy for life as a Mobius ring: when something happens and you realize you’re standing on the other side of reality you didn’t know was there. X also conjures up the notion of a Klein bottle to exemplify how the main character’s reality/life is unfolding. Once he learns to operate the white room he realizes it’s borderless, because he is the border. The main character recreates his world including the details of the cabin in the woods he once frequented. He revisits it with his daughter. The end of the story is the beginning of the story (a Mobius continuum).
The narrative invites questions on the nature of reality, time, and life, and provokes thought about technological intervention in medicine. The tropes of the Mobius continuum, Klein Bottle, and projective planes insert STEM focused language and concepts into the story.
Date published: 2017
Text type: book
Broad theme: anti-colonialism climate-crisis ethics more-than-human sovereignty sustainability
This Australian speculative fiction straddles both past and present to challenge the reader's perceptions about the past, present and future Australia. The novel has an ensemble cast in different settings, with many meeting up at the crescendo of the book.
Initially, Coleman’s novel seems familiar to a student of Australian history, following the young Jacky as he escapes from servitude and seeks to return to a home he barely remembers. However, as the reader continues, the familiarity of this text is challenged as they are thrust into an imagined future. This volta (to borrow a term from poetry) is both a jarring and reflective moment in the text, inviting the reader to move from the world of the text to their own life. The legal, religious and political aspects of the novel come to the fore as an unlikely alliance of a Settler and a group of Natives fights for survival and the narrative of Settler care for the Natives is shown to be hollow.
The documents that begin the chapters (while looking formal, they are imagined) speak to the structural and legal aspects of invasion. Coleman’s text is concerned not just with the impact of colonisation on the oppressed, but on the narratives the colonisers tell themselves to live with a false narrative.
Importantly, the novel lives between hope and cynicism, allowing the reader to consider their own ethical stance, how they view others, and the Australian history that they wish to tell.
Date published: 2018
Text type: short-fiction
Broad theme: dystopia ethics lgbtq more-than-human technology virtual-reality-internet-of-things
This story centers on a woman and her wife who are trapped in an old folks community that the protagonist helped design. The wife is in hospital and can’t be released although she feels okay because the computer algorithm says she should remain in hospital. Everyone’s body is monitored by implants. Everything is recorded by the computer. Zora (protagonist) tries to call the couple’s lawyer, but the computer won’t allow it if it’s ‘bad for her health.’ The house AI tells her her stress levels are higher than normal. Everything is monitored (where she is, what she’s doing). She is awarded “Healthy Decisions Badges” for choosing herbal tea. She cuts her ‘spy’ monitor out of her wrist. She escapes and drones are sent to find her. The irony is that she is an expert in envornment gerontology and helped build Caring Seasons, but it got out of control. Too much AI monitoring. The new system only crunches numbers and doesn’t listen to the humans anymore.
There’s an App called SloothIt and people who have drones play it to find missing people, dogs, stolen cars etc. So, they’re all tracking her as she’s been reported missing and is mogin through the woods. A drone finds her. She destroys it. The owner sends another and hears her story and then helps her.
They suggest sending the drones from SloothIt to Caring Seasons in search of the ‘missing people’ who are trapped there.
Date published: 2020
Text type: book
Broad theme: dystopia ethics more-than-human sustainability
Set in rural Australia in the near future, McKay’s text follows the journey of grandmother Jean, who lives and works in a zoo with her grandchild and daughter-in-law. Jean and her granddaughter Kimberly share an affinity for animals and desire to run their own wildlife centre, often wondering together about what animals say. At the beginning of the novel, news comes through that a new strain of flu – known as ‘zooflu’ – is sweeping the nation and has the symptom of people understanding what animals are saying and sufferers of this flu were ‘liberating’ animals from zoos. Jean’s daughter-in-law Angela, upon hearing this news, locks down the park but the arrival of Jean’s son Lee (Kimberly’s father), who has the flu, leads to an outbreak at the park. Lee leaves with Kimberly, looking to reach the ocean to speak to whales. This leads to Jean’s pursuit of her son and granddaughter with a dingo named Sue. Jean and Sue track Lee and Kimberly to the ocean, where Jean is able to rescue her granddaughter. After rescuing her, Kimberly is taken by police who had been sent by Angela and Jean is left with Sue, contemplating their future.
This story raises conversations about the relationship between humans and animals and how humans would react to a world where animals could be understood. McKay refrains from judgement of humanity’s treatment of animals, electing to instead focus on presenting the range of perspectives from both wild and domesticated animals and how their voices impact the characters in the book.
Date published: 2021
Text type: book
Broad theme: bio-techno-warfare lgbtq technology
White’s space opera begins at a party, one to celebrate/commemorate the end of the world as an AI bent on the destruction of humanity bears down on the Earth. As the AI, known as a Vanguard, comes to the Earth and begins to destroy it, another AI comes to fight it to save humanity. August Kitko, a pianist, watches the two machines (called Vanguards) fight and is eventually taken into one of them, Greymalkin, and becomes an unknowing conduit (a pilot) of the mecha. Humanity tries to comprehend why a Vanguard had turned to save humanity rather than destroy it, as August tries to understand what has happened to him and how his burgeoning relationship with rock star Ardent Violent will be impacted by the fact that the planet wasn’t destroyed and he is now physically and emotionally changed.
Hounded by the government who seeks to control him and Greymalkin, August decides to leave Earth to save a colony of humans and discovers that there are other mechas who have decided to try to save humans (known as Traitor Vanguards) as Ardent Violet seeks out a mecha clinging to life at a different colony. August comes into contact with the creator of the Vanguards, Infinite, and discovers that Infinite is a human-created AI who wants to push humanity to the brink of extinction to see what technological advancements humanity can create and they can take. August and the other conduits are victorious and come back to Earth as the remaining Vanguards controlled by Infinite descend.
An epic battle between the Vanguards and Traitor Vanguards ends the book, as the alliance between the Traitor Vanguards and their human conduits overcomes Infinite. The Earth is saved, for now, and August and Greymalkin have a decision to make: to revel in victory, or to pursue Infinite while it is vulnerable.
This book opens discussions about human hubris and our propensity to be the harbingers of our own destruction. The existential crisis for humanity in the text is created by humanity, speaking to how our unchecked desire for knowledge and progress can lead to dangerous consequences. It also speaks to how artificial intelligence takes on human qualities and how this shapes our relationship with AI as it takes on our 'best' and 'worst' traits of who we are as a species. Further, the presence and power of love in amongst wanton destruction and crisis is a reminder of the centrality of connection as a part of the human experience.
Date published: 2022
Text type: poem
Broad theme: ethics more-than-human space
This short poem focuses on the experience of an astronaut whose space station is fatally damaged and the astronaut is subsequently in danger. The astronaut sends an SOS and scientists, other humans in space and politicians are unable, or unwilling, to help. Robots see what is happening to the astronaut and are sad, but unable to help. Outside the Milky Way, the astronaut’s SOS is answered as aliens rescue them and take them to an alien galaxy, offering kinship to the astronaut.
This poem offers points of reflection on the perceived selfishness of humanity and as we begin to explore space, how we ethically look after each other. There is also an interesting juxtaposition between the point in time where we look to the stars and beyond ourselves, yet the astronauts orbiting Jupiter are so concerned about internal matters that they miss the distress call.
