The works.
12 WORKSON THE SHELF
Every book, film, and story we've held up to the light on air. Each one links back to the broadcast where we talked it out.
Books
A Psalm for the Wild-Built
Generations after robots walked away from human society, a restless tea monk travels into the wilderness and meets a robot who wants to know what people need. A short, gentle novella by Becky Chambers that opens the Monk & Robot series (2021).
Dune
On the desert planet Arrakis, the only source of the most valuable substance in the universe, young Paul Atreides and his family are pulled into a deadly struggle among noble houses, an emperor, and the planet's native Fremen. A sweeping story of politics, religion, ecology, and power (1965).
Jurassic Park
A billionaire uses recovered dinosaur DNA to build an island theme park full of living dinosaurs, and a small group of scientists is invited to see it before it opens. Adapted into Steven Spielberg's 1993 film (1990).
Neuromancer
A washed-up hacker in a grimy, corporation-run future gets one last chance to jack back into the global computer network, hired by a mysterious employer for a very dangerous job. The novel that defined cyberpunk and made "cyberspace" a household word (1984).
Nineteen Eighty-Four
In a superstate where the Party watches everyone and rewrites the past, a low-level government worker named Winston Smith begins to quietly question everything. George Orwell's dystopian classic gave us Big Brother, thoughtcrime, and doublethink (1949).
Parable of the Sower
In a near-future California coming apart under climate disaster, economic collapse, and violence, teenager Lauren Olamina starts shaping a new belief system of her own. Written in the early 1990s and set in the 2020s (1993).
Project Hail Mary
A schoolteacher wakes up alone on a spacecraft with no memory of how he got there and has to piece together his mission, and his past, while Earth's future hangs on it. A problem-solving survival story with a big heart (2021).
Snow Crash
In a privatized, franchised America, a hacker who delivers pizza for the Mafia and a teenage skateboard courier chase a mysterious drug that crashes both computers and minds. Neal Stephenson's satirical cyberpunk novel introduced the "Metaverse" (1992).
The Handmaid's Tale
In the Republic of Gilead, a theocratic regime that has overthrown the U.S. government, women have been stripped of their rights, and a woman called Offred tells the story of life as a Handmaid (1985).
The Martian
An astronaut stranded alone on Mars, with no way to call home, has to science his way to survival one problem at a time (2011).
The Water Knife
In a near-future American Southwest gripped by drought, states fight over what's left of the Colorado River, and a hired enforcer secures water for Las Vegas by any means necessary. When rumors of a game-changing water source surface in Phoenix, he's drawn into a dangerous scramble (2015).
Short stories
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
A short philosophical story about a joyful, festival-filled city whose happiness rests on one terrible condition, and about the few citizens who can't accept the bargain. Short enough to read in one sitting, hard to stop thinking about (1973).