Science fiction has historically been considered a niche genre, one in which far-flung scenarios play out on distant planets. Today, though, such plots are at the center of our media landscape. On this episode of Critics at Large, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz anatomize the appeal of recent entries, from Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” movies to Netflix’s new adaptation of “The Three-Body Problem,” the best-selling novel by Liu Cixin. The hosts are joined by Josh Rothman, an editor and writer at The New Yorker, who makes the case for science fiction as an extension of the realist novel, tracing the way films like “The Matrix” and “Contagion” have shed new light on modern life. The boundaries between science fiction and reality are increasingly blurred: tech founders like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have cited classic sci-fi texts as inspiration, and terms like “red-pilling” have found their way into our political vernacular. “I find the future that we’re all moving into to be quite scary and sort of unthinkable,” Rothman says. “Science fiction is the literary genre that addresses this problem. It helps make the future into something you can imagine.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:
“Dune: Part Two” (2024)
“3 Body Problem” (2024)
“The Martian Chronicles,” by Ray Bradbury
“Dune” (2021)
“Dune,” by Frank Herbert
“Star Trek” (1966-1969)
“2001: A Space Odyssey,” by Arthur C. Clarke
“Dune” (1984)
“Can Science Fiction Wake Us Up to Our Climate Reality?” by Joshua Rothman (The New Yorker)
“The Matrix” (1999)
“Contagion” (2011)
“The Future,” by Naomi Alderman
“Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich,” by Evan Osnos (The New Yorker)
“The Three-Body Problem,” by Liu Cixin
“Liu Cixin’s War of the Worlds,” by Jiayang Fan (The New Yorker)
New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Paul Gottfried and Adam Townsend on so much cool stuff it cannot be listed here