FUTURE: A REVIEW

society for the advancement of speculative history

Proceedings of the last gathering of the Society for the Advancement of Speculative History

Run, before it is too late… My dinner with Andre

  • 1984 - George Orwell, 1949. An operator manual for the modern surveillance society.
  • Accelerando - Charles Stross, 2005. A post-singularity novel.
  • The Bone Clocks - David Mitchell, 2014. Fantasy with good, realistic dystopian after-apocalypse.
  • Brave new world - Aldous Huxley, 1932. What to do in a prozac society.
  • The Circle - Dave Eggers, 2013. Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple merge and everything is just awesome!.
  • Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell, 2012. Stories of the resistance across time and space.
  • Daemon and Freedom - Daniel Suarez, 2006, 2009. Near-future technological dystopia/utopia.
  • The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin, 1974. Post-revolution anarchist self-criticism with interesting language. One of the most influential anarchist books of all time.
  • Distress - Greg Egan, 1995. Anarchists living in a beautful island called “Stateless”, until…
  • “The Enemy” series (Enemy, Dead, Fear, Sacrifice, Fallen, Hunted, End) - Charlie Higson, 2009. Dystopian after-apocalypse: how kids & teenagers survive and organise without adults.
  • Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury, 1953. Dystopian future where books are burned by firemen.
  • Fire on the mountain - Terry Bisson, 1988. Revolutionary abolitionist alternate history of US + Afro-futurism.
  • The Girl with all the gifts - M.R. Carey, 2014. Dystopian after-apocalypse.
  • He, She, and It - Marge Piercy, 1991. Award winning radical feminist cyborg cyberpunk.
  • Imperial Radch trilogy Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword, Ancillary Mercy - Ann Leckie, 2013. She (and her AI) attempt to revenge herself on the ruler of her civilization.
  • Lilith’s Brood: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, and Imago - Octavia Butler, 1987. Post-nuke alien sex, gender, race, and species (prepare to be mindfucked).
  • The Iron Council - China MiĆ©ville, 2004. Fantasy. On the challenges of revolution and everything that can go wrong.
  • The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin, 1969. Gender, aliens, solidarity.
  • The man in the high castle - Philip K. Dick, 1962. Alternate universe where the nazis won and the US is occupied.
  • Mars trilogy Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson, 1993-1996. Human settlement of mars: science, revolution, utopia. Robinson is an earnest socialist.
  • Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, MaddAddam - Margaret Atwood, 2003. Near future bio-dystopian environmental activists.
  • Parable of the Sower, Parable of the Talents - Octavia Butler. Post-Trump apocalypse with radical evangelism to reach the stars.
  • A Scanner Darkly Philip K. Dick, 1977. Paranoia sect drug cloak.
  • Seveneves, Neal Stephenson, 2015. Can’t tell much. The moon, the space, humanity.
  • Silo Series: Wool, Shift - Legacy, Shift - Order, Shift - Packt, Dust Hugh Howey, 2011 . No spoilers!.
  • Woman on the Edge of Time - Marge Piercy, 1976. Cannon feminist utopia scifi.
  • The Word for World is Forest - Ursula K. Le Guin, 1972. Alien anti-colonial resistance to human invaders.

in memoriam

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