The history of overhyped tech, and a new graphic novel from Charles Burns

Richard Powers’ Playground is a novel of contrasts: the huge unknown of Earth’s oceans, a spot of fixed discovery and marvelous creatures that appear all the time to be at play, versus technological development and the rise of AI; the unlikely friendship between a younger poet and a boy whose life revolves round coding; a distant island with a tiny inhabitants nonetheless feeling the consequences of a historical past of exploitation, and the tech elites who envision it because the stepping stone to their very own utopia.

By way of the views of 4 characters who’ve been introduced collectively on Makatea, an atoll within the South Pacific, Playground explores friendship, play, the wonders of the pure world and humanity within the age of synthetic intelligence. Powers’ writing is gorgeous, and Playground guarantees to depart you with lots to consider.

The Lengthy Historical past of the Future: Why Tomorrow’s Expertise Nonetheless Isn’t Right here is a surprisingly entertaining take a look at the failed guarantees of applied sciences lengthy touted to be on the horizon, and the grand ambitions of the innovators behind them. Tech and science journalist Nicole Kobie takes us on a journey by way of the many years to hint the roots of a few of the greatest concepts that by no means fairly got here to fruition in the way in which it was as soon as projected they’d — flying automobiles, the hyperloop, robots that may truly do all of our chores for us, and so on. Kobie gives a witty evaluation and quite a lot of wealthy anecdotes, making for a very informative deep dive that’s additionally fairly enjoyable to learn.

It’s a giant week for anybody who’s been ready years for an English-language launch of Charles Burns’ Dédales — Last Lower, because the English model known as, is right here. Last Lower follows a bunch of buddies who, led by aspiring filmmaker Brian, got down to make a sci-fi horror film within the vein of Invasion of the Physique Snatchers, Brian’s favourite film. However obsession takes maintain of Brian in a nightmare mix of romantic longing (for the movie’s star, Laurie) and creative creativity that has gone too far, and issues take a flip for the darkish and disturbing. As is attribute for Burns, Last Lower is surreal and unsettling, made all of the extra impactful by his crisp illustrations. In some methods it seems like a religious successor to Black Gap, and I count on this to be a type of works I preserve coming again to.