Dark, complex and utterly addictive, Veronica Roth's blockbuster dystopian YA novels have ensnared a generation of young readers. In Melbourne for the first time, this superstar of YA sci-fi talks fantasy worlds, fan fiction and unseen, fate-deciding forces with Amie Kaufman.

Photo: Scott Limbrick

Just 22 years old when she wrote the first book in her wildly successful Divergent trilogy, Roth has gone on to sell more than 35 million copies in the series. The Divergent movies have packed cinemas across the world, too – with fans obsessing over Roth's gutsy heroine, Tris, and her epic journey of courage, sacrifice and coming of age in post-apocalyptic Chicago.

With her latest series, Carve the Mark, Roth again presents a dystopian vision. This time, it's a richly imagined intergalactic setting – replete with tyrants, conspiracies, fascinating technology and a powerful, invisible phenomenon known as 'the current'.

Cory Doctorow joins author C.S. Pacat for an expansive conversation about the imperfect present and foreseeable future. 

C.S. Pacat and Cory Doctorow — Photo: Jon Tjhia

For Doctorow, the purpose of science fiction is not to predict the future – but to understand the present.

The latest book from the irrepressible Canadian activist, editor, journalist and novelist is set in an alarmingly plausible, post-scarcity near future. In Walkaway, all labour is automated, and human beings are either super-rich or surplus. Chaos, violence and catastrophe ensue. Yet, Doctorow asserts, the novel is utopian.

‘Stories of futures in which disaster strikes and we rise to the occasion are a vaccine against the virus of mistrust,’ he has written. ‘The [best] science fiction tells us better nations are ours to build and lets us dream vividly of what it might be like to live in those nations.’

The fixations of Walkaway are the fixations that have defined Doctorow’s career. Through his fiction and journalism – including as a co-editor of Boing Boing – he has sparked and steered debates on digital rights, surveillance, automation, inequality and biotechnology. In all his work, Doctorow brings optimism and imagination as well as hardcore intellect; his idea of utopia is something weird, cooperative, messy and in constant flux.