Future Fictions Lab : Reverse-Engineering Tomorrow

the light brigade.


Listen Later

In the science fiction novel The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley, a recruit named Dietz enlists in a corporate military to fight a brutal war against Mars. Soldiers are deployed via a teleportation technology that breaks their bodies into light, but Dietz begins experiencing these "drops" out of chronological order, witnessing different versions of the future and the past. This non-linear perspective reveals that the interplanetary conflict is built on corporate lies, propaganda, and the systematic dehumanization of lower-class "ghouls." As Dietz moves through various points in time, they realize the military's tech is causing cellular decay and mental instability among the troops. Ultimately, Dietz attempts to use their unique awareness of the time loops to exert personal volition and break the cycle of endless corporate warfare. The narrative explores themes of blind obedience, the loss of objective truth, and the hope for a future free from institutional control.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Future Fictions Lab : Reverse-Engineering TomorrowBy Miquela Bonferroni, Mark M. Whelan, Jack Strangeways,