The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

The novel “The Diamond Age” by Neal Stephenson was published for the first time in 1995. It won the Hugo and Locus Awards.

John Percival Hackworth created A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer for Lord Alexander Chung-Sik Finkle-McGraw, a rich Neo-Victorian, who commissioned it to provide a better education for his granddaughter. However, Hackworth made an illegal copy for his daughter but it was stolen by Harv, a child from the poorest class who gave it to his sister Nell.

What Hackworth did was discovered with various consequences that also involved other people, who had different agendas, also connected to the different phyles they belong to. Nell has access to a level of education that poor people are generally excluded from, but her mother represents for her a sort of prison that prevents her from getting out of the slums.

the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Anita (Stephanie de Whalley) in Joy to the World (Image courtesy BBC / Disney+)

“Joy to the World” is the 2024 “Doctor Who” Christmas special episode. It’s available in the UK and Ireland on BBC channels and in many other countries on the Disney+ platform.

The Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) arrives at a hotel in the year 4202 that offers access to different moments in history. He sees a strange man at the reception with a briefcase attached to him with a chain and becomes suspicious. He starts investigating with the help of security guard Trev (Joel Fry) but the briefcase is passed from person to person until a Silurian takes it to another hotel in 2024. The Doctor follows him and arrives at a room recently rented by Joy Almondo (Nicola Coughlan), much to the confusion of her and manager Anita (Stephanie de Whalley).

Emily Watson in 2024

On December 22, the first season of the TV show “Dune: Prophecy” ended.

Years after the death of Frank Herbert, the author of the original Dune novels, his son Brian and Kevin J. Anderson started writing stories, generally in mini-series of two or three novels, set in the same fictional universe. I read several of them but frankly, at a certain point, I got bored because the level seemed to me to be that of fanfiction that lacked all the nuances that were a great strength of the original works.

“Dune: Prophecy” is set several decades after the end of the Butlerian jihad. The titles indicate a connection with the novel “Sisterhood of Dune” but the show is set after those events, in a period in which the Imperium is still seeking stability.

The Cleaner by Mark Dawson

The novel “The Cleaner” by Mark Dawson was published for the first time in 2014. It’s the first book in the John Milton series.

John Milton is the number one man sent by British intelligence when they deem it necessary to physically eliminate some dangerous person and to do it in a clean way. He’s tasked with eliminating a couple of Iranian scientists linked to the atomic program who are officially on vacation in France but the information in his possession doesn’t include the presence of their son and he decides to spare him. Instead, he’s forced to kill a gendarme who arrives at the crime scene.

The mission has deeply affected John Milton’s conscience, already shaken by the long trail of blood he has left behind over the years. He wants to resign but such a choice is inconceivable in his type of work and his supervisor assesses the measures to take. By chance, Milton comes across a woman who wants to commit suicide and saves her. He discovers that she’s in a complicated situation with a teenage son who is part of a London gang intent on various crimes.

The Word for World Is Forest by Ursula Le Guin

The novel “The Word for World Is Forest” by Ursula Le Guin was published for the first time in 1972. It won the Hugo Award for the Best Novella of the year.

An Earth expedition is on the planet called Athshe by the native humanoids and New Tahiti by the aspiring colonists who want to exploit the resources offered by the forest that covers it. The natives’ peaceful nature, oriented towards introspection and harmony with nature, made them easy to enslave.

Captain Davidson is the leader of a logging camp that exploits many natives. He goes to the Earth colony headquarters in the hope of having a meeting with one of the newly arrived women and when he returns to the camp, he finds that it was devastated and the humans were killed. He’s attacked by the natives but is spared by Selver, the native leader who instructs him to tell the Earthlings what has happened.