Deep Dream: Science Fiction Exploring the Future of Art

For this earnest and nuanced collection, Das (The Last Dragoners of Bowbazar) brings together 10 writers to imagine artists, both human and non-, grappling with futuristic challenges, including generative AI and other “nascent technocapitalist singularities.” In “The Limner Wrings His Hands,” Vajra Chandrasekera conjures a large language model–like “monster” trained on Persian and other classics. Samit Basu’s “The Art Crowd” takes a satirical view of technology, authoritarian politics, and the Indian art world; the story features a publicity agent (“reality controller”) and her new virtual client, Cosmos Apsara, whose shtick is falling asleep with animals while fans watch. Three-time Nebula award winner Aliette de Bodard, in “Autumn’s Red Bird,” uses spaceships in love as a platform to explore grief and renewal through art. In “Encore,” by Wole Talabi, twin artificial intelligences (“Blombos-7090 and Blombos-4020”) create art for the inhabitants of the planet Sunjata who “recently networked their consciousness together using a bioengineered version of a spore network.” The volume also includes photographs of artist Diana Scherer’s mesmerizing, living textiles and a lively interview with Neil Clarke, the publisher and editor of Clarkesworld Magazine, who discusses how the sci-fi journal roots out AI-generated submissions. Though some of the stories have an Edgar Allan Poe weariness about them, the collection as a whole offers plenty of hope. Fans of near-future sci-fi should check it out. (Oct.)