Deep Dream

Ten acclaimed writers imagine the future of art across space and time.


In this volume from the Twelve Tomorrows series, Deep Dream, ten writers imagine the different ways in which art forms might evolve, devolve, shift, and transform in the decades and centuries to come. They consider how the rapid progress of technology will interact with different mediums of art or give rise to new ones, and what the lives and inner worlds of different kinds of artists might look like in the future as they adapt to rapidly shifting eras amidst anthropogenic global threats like climate change and fascism.

Contributors include award-winning authors and artists from around the world, with a strong focus on South Asia; three of the contributors are from India or Sri Lanka. Readers will also find in this collection American science-fiction legend Bruce Sterling and Egyptian counter-cultural cartoonist, visual artist, and writer Ganzeer, as well as artist Diana Scherer, one of the pioneers in bio tech art. The volume also includes an interview with noted science fiction publisher and editor Neil Clarke, who discusses the future of art and the ways in which the science fiction short fiction market has responded to the introduction of AI-generated fiction and art.

Contributors
Samit Basu, Vajra Chandrasekera, Neil Clarke, Aliette de Bodard, Ganzeer, Cassandra Khaw, Lavanya Lakshminarayan, Archita Mittra, Sloane Leong, Bruce Sterling, Wole Talabi, Lavie Tidhar. Artwork by Diana Scherer.Introduction
Indrapramit Das
1 The Limner Wrings His Hands, Vajra Chandrasekera
2 The Art Crowd, Samit Basu
3 Immortal Is the Heart, Cassandra Khaw
4 Unauthorized (Or, the Liberated Collector’s Commune), Ganzeer
5 Halfway to Hope, Lavanya Lakshminarayan
6 AI Concerns Are Not “Too Sci-Fi”, Neil Clarke interviewed by Archita Mittra
7 No Future but Infinity Itself, Sloane Leong
8 Immortal Beauty, Bruce Sterling
9 Autumn’s Red Bird, Aliette de Bodard
10 Encore, Wole Talabi
11 The Quietude, Lavie Tidhar
Acknowledgments
Contributors“For this earnest and nuanced collection, Das brings together 10 writers to imagine artists, both human and non-, grappling with futuristic challenges, including generative AI and other ‘nascent technocapitalist singularities’ . . . 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.”
—Publishers WeeklyIndrapramit Das (aka Indra Das) won the Lambda Literary Award for his debut novel The Devourers and the Shirley Jackson Award for his short fiction. His work has appeared in Tor.com, Slate, Clarkesworld, and Asimov’s Science Fiction. He is an Octavia E. Butler Scholar.