Future Tense Fiction

By Slate Podcasts

Arts Technology

What's Future Tense Fiction about?

Each month, Future Tense Fiction will bring you a dramatic telling of a short story exploring how tech that's emerging today could dramatically reshape tomorrow. Science journalist Maddie Stone will then have a conversation with the author about what inspired their writing, and their vision of the future.

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Future Tense Fiction episodes:

09.02.2023
Welcome to the A.I. Haunted House
On this month’s episode of Future Tense Fiction, host Maddie Stone talks to Janelle Shane about her short story “The Skeleton Crew.” The House of A.I. is a next-level haunted house: In it, a suite of advanced A.I.s read visitors’ facial...
07.29.2023
Could a Robot Be Your Dog’s Best Friend?
On this month’s episode of Future Tense Fiction, host Maddie Stone talks to Andrew Silverman about his short story “Furgen.” Tucker, the story’s canine protagonist, is the center of his owner Caro’s world. When Caro buys an A.I.-enabled dog trainer that...
06.24.2023
Who Gets to Escape the Climate Crisis?
On this month’s episode of Future Tense Fiction, host Maddie Stone talks to Matt Bell about his short story “Empathy Hour.” In the story’s climate-change-ravaged future, society’s wealthiest are whisked away to luxurious, self-contained cities. Once there, they entertain themselves with...
05.27.2023
When Robots Go to War
On this month’s episode of Future Tense Fiction, host Maddie Stone talks to Justina Ireland about her short story “Collateral Damage.” The story follows a group of soldiers deployed alongside TED, the Army’s first self-aware combat drone. TED is relentlessly efficient,...
04.29.2023
Live. Love. Die. Repeat?
On this month’s episode of Future Tense Fiction, host Maddie Stone talks to David Iserson about “This, but Again.” The story follows Marcus, who is forced to relive his life over and over again in a never-ending computer simulation. Thanks...
03.25.2023
Can a Pandemic Story Have a Happy Ending?
On this month’s episode of Future Tense Fiction, host Maddie Stone talks to Annalee Newitz about “When Robot and Crow Saved East St. Louis.” Annalee’s short story follows a disease-fighting robot—and its companions, both human and crow—on a quest to...
03.18.2023
Future Tense Fiction: Coming March 25
When you imagine how science and technology will reshape our future, does it excite you, or scare you, or both? Each month, the Future Tense Fiction podcast will introduce you to a short work of science fiction, one that will...
10.09.2018
6: Coriolanus
In this sixth and final episode of Lend Me Your Ears, host Isaac Butler talks to the Public Shakespeare Initiative’s Michael Sexton, Villanova professor John-Paul Spiro, Brooklyn College professor Roy Tsao, and theater critic Helen Shaw about the themes of...
09.11.2018
5: Othello
Othello isn’t just a play about race, toxic masculinity, and the nature of identity—it’s a play that has influenced our own views on race throughout the centuries. But what did race mean in early 17th-century London? In this fifth episode...
08.14.2018
4: Measure for Measure
Five hundred years before #MeToo, Shakespeare wrote his darkest comedy, a story of religion, sexual coercion, and the nature of justice. In this fourth episode of Lend Me Your Ears, host Isaac Butler talks to theater critic Helen Shaw, Villanova University...
07.10.2018
3: King Lear
If a nation can be thought of as a family, what happens when the family running the nation falls apart? At the exact moment that King James I wanted to unite England and Scotland, Shakespeare answered this question with his...
06.12.2018
2: Richard II
Richard II is God’s anointed representative on Earth, but by the end of the play that bears his name, he’s dead and his cousin sits on his throne. This is the story of how Shakespeare used English history to ask...
05.22.2018
1.5: Reading Julius Caesar in Modern Context
Slate Plus members get a bonus episode of Lend Me Your Ears every month. Here, we offer a preview of the Julius Caesar extra, in which Isaac Butler, The Handmaid's Tale screenwriter Dorothy Fortenberry, and Vanity Fair film critic K....
05.08.2018
1: Julius Caesar
Lend Me Your Ears is a six-part podcast miniseries exploring how Shakespeare’s works have shaped our modern views on politics. Each month, host Isaac Butler will dig into a different Shakespeare play to explore how Shakespeare was responding to his...