The good news: Superhumans exist! The bad news: They are homicidal jerks! And they've laid waste to our world. A band of puny humans, including 18-year-old David, hunt them in the city of Chicago, which has been turned to steel by one of the most powerful - and jerkiest. Dan and Paul talk about Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson, joined by Dr. Jim Davies, author of "Riveted: The Science of Why Jokes Make Us Laugh, Movies Make Us Cry, and Religion Makes Us Feel One with the Universe" from Palgrave Macmillan - and an aspiring YA author.

Who was in your class in grade 10? If you were all stuck on an island with automatic weapons and forced to fight each other to the death, who would be your allies, and who your enemies - and who would turn out to be a psycho? Dan and Paul ask each other that, and talk about the film where this scenario plays out: the bloody live action Japanese film Battle Royale. Which is actually pretty different from The Hunger Games.

What if your post-apocalyptic world was all just a big social experiment? Join us as we once again look at a city divided in nerds, jocks, wimps, squares and stoners (aka Erudite, Dauntless, Abnegation, Candor and Amity) with Volume 2 of the Divergent series: Insurgent!

A land where everyone is pretty and parties all the time - sounds like a Fight the Future taping! Tally is about to turn 16, when she will become a Pretty, thanks to the radical plastic surgery her society demands. But when she makes contact with people outside the city, she learns that there's a downside, that rhymes with "brain lesions". No wait, it's just brain lesions. Dan and Paul are joined by Tally (a different one!) to talk about Uglies by Scott Westerfeld.

It's the Hunger Games, All Star Edition! Where the opponents are deadlier, the police state more oppressive, and the stakes...death. Yeah, there wasn't really anywhere to go from "death". In this episode, Dan and Paul are joined by Cynthia to talk about the second volume in the Hunger Games series: Catching Fire.

The world is covered in deadly mould forests filled with giant carnivorous insects, but luckily Nausicaa has the wind to protect her! This week, Dan and Paul are joined by Ian to talk about the early Hayao Miyazaki film, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.

This time Dan and Paul and guest Dustin cover our world, as depicted in Cory Doctorow's Little Brother, with all the government surveillance and anti-terrorism hysteria we've got. The difference: there's been an attack on San Francisco, and teenage crypto-geeks are on the front lines against an authoritarian crackdown.

Excerpt read by Cory Doctorow / CC BY-NC-SA

Mazes are fun on long car rides! But not so much when you're trapped in one, and there are murderous cyborg spiders. Thomas and a bunch of other teenage boys look for an exit as Dan and Paul talk about the dystopic world of The Maze Runner.

It was a key influence on Mad Max and the Fallout series, but this 1975 movie, about 18-year-old Vic and his telepathic dog Blood in a post-nuke landscape, doesn't look so good today. Paul and Dan struggle with the weird mysogyny of A Boy and his Dog, based on the Harlan Ellison short story of the same name, and almost lose it. A warning that the source material deals with sexual assault.

The dark YA dystopia that started the craze, as Katniss Everdeen fights to survive in the arena against other murderous teens, armed only with her bow. Meanwhile, love interest Peeta is armed only with his ability to disguise himself as mud. This week Dan, Paul and special guest Gaby volunteer as tribute for The Hunger Games.