There have been several Twelve Tomorrows collections from MIT Press since the original in 2018 - stories that are supposed to make the reader think about the impact of future technology. This latest addition focuses on 'science fiction exploring the future of art' - which presented a distinct danger of pretentiousness taken to the extreme. Thankfully, editor Indrapamit Das has been able to avoid this trap. Like all such collections, there is a mix of good, bad and indifferent - but on the whole the balance is positive. Even a story like the opener The Limner Wrings His Hands by Vajra Chandrasekera - which scores fairly high on the pretentiousness stakes, and is far too clever clever somewhat in the manner of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest - is surprisingly readable if you force yourself to focus hard on the word salad (though it is fantasy rather than SF). To pick out two favourites, The Art Crowd by Samit Basu was a significantly more readable piece, well structure
Tom Salinsky is a writer, podcaster and corporate coach living in London with his wife and too many cats. With Deborah Frances-White, he is the author of The Improv Handbook (Methuen Drama, 2008). With Robert Khan he is the author of five plays and many audio dramas for Big Finish. With his podcast colleagues John Dorney and Jessica Regan, he is the author of Best Pick: A Journey Through Film History and the Academy Awards (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022). As a solo author, he has published Star Trek: Discovering the Television Series (Pen & Sword, 2024), the second volume of which is due for release in 2025. His latest title is Red Dwarf: Discovering the TV Series . Why science fiction? I’m sure there are countless theories about why awkward teens gravitate towards science fiction and fantasy, but everyone likes a bit of escapism. And if your ordinary life is dull or scary or isolating or confusing, then you may well be drawn to escapism which is set in a world as unlike your or