WILL STONE samples the 20th anniversary atmosphere of this eclectic end-of-season indie festival
Welcome to Dystopia: Forty-five Visions of What Lies Ahead
Edited by Gordon Van Gelder
(OR Books, £16)
WITH jobs automated out of existence, Facebook used to influence elections and computer programmes managing state surveillance, military invasion and social control, the late Stephen Hawking rightly warned us about technology, particularly that it is driving “ever-increasing inequality.”
Unsurprising, then, that there has been a spate of dystopian fiction anthologies, with the Morning Star in recent months covering two relentlessly pessimistic and impressive collections, 2084 (Unsung Stories) and Exit Earth (Storgy).
ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Synthetic Sincerity, Our Hero, Balthazar, Heartstopper Forever, and A Year In London
ANDY HEDGECOCK welcomes an entertaining, useful guide to the threats and promises of mathematical rationality
CHRIS SEARLE welcomes a startling vision of contemporary Newport from a veteran photographer of the British working class


