Brave New World
with Robert J. Sawyer and Madeline Ashby
Hosted Katie Tallo
In Person Streaming Fiction
The Downloaded absolutely sizzles with fascinating ideas. You want space travel, a ruined Earth, virtual worlds, a cast of relatable characters, and a glimpse into the labyrinth of human destiny? Look no further: this book has all that and more.
Join us for a guided tour of possible tomorrows with bestselling authors Robert J. Sawyer and Madeline Ashby.
Robert J. Sawyer—the only Canadian to have won all three of the world’s top awards for best science-fiction novel of the year; the Hugo, the Nebula, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award—returns to the Festival stage with The Downloaded. In 2059, two very different groups have their minds uploaded into a quantum computer in Waterloo, Ontario. One group consists of astronauts preparing for Earth’s first interstellar voyage. The other group? Convicted murderers, serving their sentences in a virtual-reality prison. But when disaster strikes, the astronauts and the prisoners must download back into physical reality and find a way to work together to save Earth from destruction.
Glass Houses is a gleefully decadent near-future whodunit from Madeline Ashby, the acclaimed futurist and author of Company Town. A group of employees and their CEO, celebrating the sale of their remarkable emotion-mapping-AI-algorithm, crash onto a not-quite-deserted tropical island. Luckily, those who survived have found a beautiful, fully-stocked private palace, with all the latest technological updates (though one without connection to the outside world). The house, however, has more secrets than anyone might have guessed, and a much darker reason for having been built and left behind.
Books are available from our friends at Perfect Books.
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