Cory Doctorow and John Kessel [broadcast 2017-04-24] — UTOPIAN FUTURES! Both Doctorow (Walkaway, Tor Books) and Kessel (The Moon and the Other, Saga Press) posit quasi-utopian futures stemming from responses to our current socio-economic-political climate. In Doctorow’s Walkaway, this comes in the form of literally “walking away” en masse from modern society and setting up new forms of living in the blighted post-industrial wildernesses. In Kessel’s novel, this comes in the form of the creation of colonies on the moon, with various structures and cultures, including his “Society of Cousins”, where women hold nearly all political power. Doctorow joins co-hosts Mur Lafferty and Samuel Montgomery-Blinn via phone, ahead of his now ongoing book tour which brings him to Chapel Hill’s Flyleaf Books on Friday, May 5, before we are joined in studio by Kessel at around the 24 minute mark for a good amount of overlap between our guests. Enjoy!
Kessel and Lafferty in studio.