Until she turned thirty, Mar Márquez (Barcelona, 1981) only spoke Spanish. Despite being born and living in Catalonia, her entire environment communicated in that language, so for her Catalan was a foreign and distant language. But Márquez started working in a place where the working language was Catalan, and she began a relationship with a partner who also spoke it, so she made a decision: "I chose Catalan, I made it my chosen and beloved language. It was hard for me, but I stand by it. Since then, I write and think in Catalan," she states. The choice is even more significant because it was linked to her first steps as a future writer. Starting from classes at the Ateneu Barcelonès, Márquez began to craft the seed of her first novel, Amat Amat, which she has just published with Males Herbes. "I am a great defender of the language. Let's create culture in Catalan, please," Márquez demands.

It is very interesting (and comforting) news that Pope Leo XIV dedicates his first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas, to confronting the major technology companies that aim to lead the implementation of a new authoritarian world order, based on the power of a few large oligarchies. Leo XIV says no to the idea of a world controlled by the masters of artificial intelligence. It is the world of Alex Karp, the CEO of the company Palantir – about whom we spoke the other day–, who openly preaches and practices the idea of concentrating power in the hands of those who possess not only the nuclear weapon, but also (and above all) the power of artificial intelligence. A world based on an elite of lords and a humanity made of servants, barely lab rats forced to fulfill the role assigned by a power that, like Janus, has the double face of war and peace. Depending on how and from where the AI looks at you, your passage through this world can be relatively peaceful and prosperous (and irrelevant), or it can consist of becoming minced meat in one of the more than fifty wars currently raging in the world with multiple purposes, but one main one: to make money. The more the security spending of states and large corporations increases, the more the arms supply and demand expand, and, therefore, the more conflicts there end up being. AI is both cause and effect of this vicious circle.Leo XIV claims humanist thought in opposition to the logic of what is known as technofeudalism, or technofascism, that is to say: the final stage of capitalism's decomposition, at the antipodes of liberal democracies (liberalism and the very idea of freedom are banners that authoritarians have made their own: in this sense, Karp should be thanked for his half-frankness in not presenting himself as a defender of freedom, but of order). The Pope is therefore right to take part in one of the crucial issues of the world in which he has had to exercise his pontificate (his predecessor Leo XIII, from whom he took his name, did so by siding with workers' rights). He confronts the Promethean vocation of tech companies, of the big AI and big data service providers: like Prometheus, they too want to steal fire from the gods, but not to give it to men, but to subjugate them. There is also a pharaonic vocation: read Irene Cordón's short essay, The Pharaohs of Silicon Valley, where the disturbing parallel is established between the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, who were worshipped as gods, and the magnates of this world dominated by large AI corporations.It is logical that the Pope reacts to this situation, because it is - once again - the usurpation of God. Perhaps we have never been so close. In an old science fiction story, Fredric Brown narrates how, a newly inaugurated supercomputer - to great joy and expectation of the rulers - is tested with a first and only question: "Does God exist?" The answer is equally concise: "Now he does."

A Viva, the film with which Aina Clotet has won the revelation award at the Critics' Week in Cannes, the protagonist is a biologist who studies how to extend life to 120 years. And, almost as if it were a sequel to this film, in the other opera prima by a Catalan director premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, The end of it by a Catalan director premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, The end of it begins with the protagonist's birthday, an artist who reluctantly celebrates reaching 250 years old because she is tired of the perennial joy that surrounds her, of her friends, and of living forever. So her new artistic project, which will also be her last, will consist of dying, an announcement that shocks the entire society. For the director, we live in a world that “denies and tries to hide death” and in which youth is idealized as if it were the only desirable state of life. “It is absurd to think of youth as the peak of life, because in reality it passes very quickly –points out Martínez Bayona–. Organizing life like this doesn't help much to continue valuing what you do and who you are.”

Writer, cartoonist, and professor of Sinophone literature, Wu Ming-Yi (Taoyuan, Taiwan, 1971) publishes a compendium of six short stories in which humans, nature, and technology invade other worlds and confirm their interdependence. Wu Ming-Yi's literature has been labeled magical realism for the way it seamlessly links human and non-human experiences. In this regard, The Land of Bitter Rain (Chronos) questions anthropocentrism and suggests that humans must learn to communicate through non-human and more effective languages and perspectives. Translated by Mireia Vargas-Urpí, the book features animal illustrations by the author himself.

This 2026, Capcom is on fire. After the new Resident Evil and the new installment of Monster Hunter Stories, both with very good ratings, it's time for a new IP (intellectual property). Pragmata is a science fiction action-adventure game that features innovative third-person shooter combat. The development has not been easy and has been extended for about six years since its presentation, but the final proposal is fresh and risky. The title is also a graphical and technical spectacle worthy of a major production and never forgets that it is a video game designed to entertain. We analyze what Pragmata offers and share our impressions after having played it.

Alice B. Sheldon (Chicago, 1915 - McLean, 1987) signed her books with the pseudonym James Tiptree Jr.: she chose a generic name like James and took the surname Tiptree from a jam jar. Women than men They don't see It is a collection of twelve stories written between 1962 and 1973 that functions as a perfect trap: it seems like adventure science fiction, but in reality, it is a highly precise piece of ideological dissection. Sheldon doesn't imagine distant futures to escape the present, but rather uses them to make it intolerably visible, anticipating current debates on feminism, sex, and environmentalism.

"I think all my books have something related to mythology or some kind of revelation. It's about searching for something that isn't obvious, making a discovery. But I try to make each book very different; that is, I try to do what I don't know how to do. Because I think that in literature we have to take risks, you know?" Anna Pantinat (Barcelona, ​​1977) is a multifaceted artist. She is a part-time high school teacher, a member with her sister Laia of the electro-punk garage band Pentina't Lula, and, until recently, the author of four books of poetry, including Posthuman joys (2025), which is in the process of being set to music. Sumer is here It is the fifth book he has published and comes after 13 years of work.

Fans of fantasy and science fiction films have a date at the Palau Firal i de Congresos in Tarragona on March 21 and 22, 2026. There will be cosplayers Characters dressed as figures from galactic sagas and other fantasy series and films will stroll through the venue and take photos with attendees. There will also be sets recreating scenes from movies to transform the event into a truly immersive and impactful experience.

At first glance, it may seem that science fiction has been a minority pursuit among Catalan authors. Historically, it hasn't been a genre highly valued by academia, it has received little—or poor—publication in the media, and readers have only embraced it en masse on rare occasions. The exhibition Essa EfaCurated by journalist, professor, and literary critic Joaquim Noguero (Manresa, 1964), the exhibition aims to correct this perception by exploring some of the most compelling (and largely unusual) works of Catalan science fiction. "Although science fiction has been represented primarily by authors, scholars, and publishers who have not positioned themselves within the..." mainstreamIt has more than a century of history, and perhaps its most recognizable success is the Second origin typescript"Manuel de Pedrolo's novel, which is by far the best-selling novel in the history of Catalan literature," Noguero recalls. One of the clichés of the fantasy genre defines its followers as geeks: perhaps those who cultivate them—even when they become best-sellers– they are too.

When in 2019 Disney bought 21st Century Fox studio for more than 60 billion euros He not only acquired the superhero trading cards he was missing from his Marvel collection (the franchises X-Men, Deadpool, Fantastic Four...) but iconic sagas like Alien and PredatorThese films, which blended science fiction, horror, and action, naturally raised questions about how they fit into the completely accessible and uncomplicated approach that defines Disney's corporate identity. Six years later, perhaps the answer is... Predator: Badlands, which arrives in theaters this Friday and is a strange hybrid between one of Hollywood's most hyper-violent sagas and cinema family-friendly from Disney.

There are films that arrive too early and it is not until thirty years after their release that the public comes to understand them as they were conceived. This is the case of Starship Troopers, by Dutch director Paul Verhoeven, known for other science fiction films such as Robocop and Total Recall.

Short story collections don't come in handy. This is a maxim in the publishing world that many authors try to overthrow. Ted Chiang is one such exponent in the science fiction genre. Throughout the eight stories contained in The story of your life and other stories, the American author of Chinese origin elegantly transports us to completely plausible and familiar environments, sometimes magical, always incorporating a component of criticism and reflection on our place in the Universe and the future of our society.

Control over bodies, especially women's bodies, has been a recurring theme in dystopian narratives depicting futuristic authoritarian regimes. The evaluation, an effective and stylized science fiction chamber piece, does not contain the fierce genre reading ofThe Handmaid's Tale, but the spirit of the novel Margaret Atwood permeates the description of this post-climate disaster universe: aseptic and safe but also tightly regulated, where couples who want to have children must pass a strict external evaluation.

If current events aren't dystopian enough yet, Netflix premieres a new season of Black Mirror, the mirror of a near future that, if the series is any indication, will be terrifying. Fourteen years after becoming a worldwide phenomenon, the fiction created by Charlie Brooker premieres its seventh season, an installment that comes with a novelty compared to the previous ones: for the first time, it includes an episode that is a sequel to a story told in a previous season.