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.

Via 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 go away you with rather a lot to consider.

The Lengthy Historical past of the Future: Why Tomorrow’s Expertise Nonetheless Isn’t Right here is a surprisingly entertaining have 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 via the many years to hint the roots of a few of the largest concepts that by no means fairly got here to fruition in the way in which it was as soon as projected they might — flying automobiles, the hyperloop, robots that may really do all of our chores for us, and so forth. Kobie affords a witty evaluation and a number 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 — Closing Minimize, because the English model is known as, is right here. Closing Minimize follows a gaggle of associates 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 inventive creativity that has gone too far, and issues take a flip for the darkish and disturbing. As is attribute for Burns, Closing Minimize is surreal and unsettling, made all of the extra impactful by his crisp illustrations. In some methods it appears like a non secular successor to Black Gap, and I count on this to be a type of works I maintain coming again to.