I’ve always been a fan of optimistic science fiction: future worlds that aren’t based on repressive class systems, technological enslavement, or that are otherwise abhorrent to live in. If I ask you to think of a sci-fi work, you’re likely to think of one of these dystopias before something sanguine, like the Star Trek universe or WALL-E . So, I wonder: where is all the optimistic sci-fi? Where are the fantasies we’d actually want to live in?

To put it broadly, science fiction is speculative fiction involving futuristic concepts based in advanced science and technology. These imagined worlds can take a pessimistic or melancholic tone for many reasons. Firstly, the defence of a made-up world allows creators to explore and criticise their contexts when circumstances can make it difficult to do so directly.…