The five Canadian sci-fi novels you should read right now

Peter Kavanagh loves sci-fi. The author, former CBC producer and current columnist for The Next Chapter offers up his picks for a science fiction-filled summer. 

Why science fiction is having a moment

It is a bit of a zeitgeist out there. We live in an age where we are beset and besotted with two totally different trend ideas in our culture. Number one is a dystopian imagination run wild, which is the idea that technology is going to drive us into the dust and crush us beyond belief. You see that everywhere — you see it in movies, you see it in TV shows, you see it in people talking on the streets. On the other side of that, you have what are called techno-optimists — people who believe we can conquer the stars, we can cure cancer, that we can actually move from one side of the United States to the other side of the United States in less than an hour. It is as if we divided the Earth's population into two, half walking around saying this is the worst of times, the other half walking around saying this is the best of times.