Cataclysm or Cure-All?: Fiction Writers Engage with the Promises and Perils of Our Tech Future

{ "name":"Cataclysm or Cure-All?: Fiction Writers Engage with the Promises and Perils of Our Tech Future", "description":"If Chekhov or Borges or Arthur Miller wrote about the digital age, what would it look like? Four fiction writers, each with an exquisite ear for societal mores and the tender absurdities of humanity, bring their artistry to bear on the Wild West frontier of tech. With Out There, Kate Folk looks at intimacy through a futurist lens (Chang-Rae Lee calls her “the literary love child of Kafka and Camus and Bradbury penning episodes of ‘Black Mirror’”—fittingly, her book’s being adapted into a Hulu series). Technological capitalism and climate change run rampant through Vauhini Vara’s The Immortal King Rao (“a masterwork… three great novels in one,” says Karan Mahajan). Claire Stanford’s “fiercely insightful”—Alexandra Kleeman) Happy for You is set in a tech company developing a “happiness app,” and James Kennedy’s Dare to Know, described by Daniel Kraus as “what happens when Willy Loman sees through the Matrix,” takes place at one that has developed the technology to predict anyone’s death down to the second. This is speculative fiction at its most prescient and poignant. The bookstore partner for this session is Marcus Books! Buy the books online at Bookshop.org or purchase them in person at the Festival. More information here.", "startDate":"2022-05-08", "endDate":"2022-05-08", "startTime":"11:00", "endTime":"12:00", "location":"The Marsh Berkeley", "options":[ "Apple", "Google", "iCal", "Microsoft365", "MicrosoftTeams", "Outlook.com", "Yahoo" ], "timeZone":"America/Los_Angeles", "iCalFileName":"Reminder-Event" }