In recent history, apocalyptic science fiction was fun. It was hard for most of us to imagine, while reading things like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, that the bleak deadzone the novel is set in could become a reality but for many people round the world, it now is.

Erica Wagner talks to Arvind Ethan David, an author and screenwriter, about the purpose of science fiction now. In times of plenty, it is strangely gratifying to imagine times of disaster — and in times of disaster, it pays, Arvind thinks, to imagine more positive possibilities. The role of the artist, he feels, is to consider how a better future might work.

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