If you didn’t get enough bleak, dystopian scenarios out of this season, here are some similar science fiction novels to tide you over until the next season. // A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick: Speaking of Dick, no list of mind-bending science fiction books would be complete without him. Inspired partly by Dick’s own experiences with drug subcultures, A Scanner Darkly follows an undercover police officer, Bob Arctor, who has infiltrated a group of druggies who use a dangerous new drug called “Substance D.” The novel includes thought-provoking sci-fi concepts, like the “scramble suits” that project dozens of different photographs of people to preserve the wearer’s anonymity, as well as a conspiratorial twist at the end.

I recently read Terri Favro’s upcoming book on the history and future of robotics, sent to me by a publisher hungry for blurbs. It’s a fun read— I had no trouble obliging them— but I couldn’t avoid an almost oppressive sense of— well, of optimism hanging over the whole thing. Favro states outright, for example, that she’s decided to love the Internet of Things; those who eye it with suspicion she compares to old fogies who stick with their clunky coal-burning furnace and knob-and-tube wiring as the rest of the world moves into a bright sunny future. She praises algorithms that analyze your behavior and autonomously order retail goods on your behalf, just in case you’re not consuming enough on your own: “We’ll be giving up our privacy, but gaining the surprise and delight that comes with something new always waiting for us at the door” she gushes (sliding past the surprise and delight we’ll feel when our Visa bill loads up with purchases we never made).