StarShipSofa No 741 Matthew Kressel

·42 min·4 clips

Ricardo sells AI replicas of the deceased to grieving widows, risking violence with every doorbell ring.

The episode opens with host Tony C. Smith introducing the main fiction, 'Movie Night' by Matthew Kressel, an original story for Starship Sofa. The story follows Ricardo, a salesman for Life Again, a company that creates AI simulacra of dead people using social media data and private uploads. Ricardo's job involves door-to-door sales to grieving relatives, often facing violence and rejection. He reveals the dystopian setting: a world suffering from climate change, job loss due to AI, and migrant crises. Ricardo's personal life centers on a simulated daughter named Lily, a demo he uses to cope, though he admits he never actually had a child. In a bar scene, he defends his work by sharing his tragic backstory of losing a real daughter due to his addiction, which led him to Life Again. The narrative includes coworker interactions, such as Masha, who carries weapons for protection, and Diego, who confesses to shooting a client and later commits suicide. Ricardo reflects on the grim reality of their world, where most people are 'fucked from day one.' The story ends with Ricardo clinging to Lily, acknowledging the lie but needing it to survive. After the fiction, Amy H. Sturgess presents 'Looking Back at Genre History,' focusing on the MIT Press Radium Age series. She explains the series reissues proto-science fiction from 1900-1935, highlighting forgotten classics that feature early tropes like robots, dystopias, and eco-catastrophes. Amy quotes editor Joshua Glenn on the series' goals to entertain and highlight this overlooked era. She mentions specific titles, such as 'The Heads of Cerberus' by Francis Stevens, 'Voices from the Radium Age' anthology, 'Of One Blood' by Pauline Hopkins, 'The People of the Ruins' by Edward Shanks, and 'Man's World' by Charlotte Haldane. Amy notes the political radicalism of the era, with works addressing feminism, socialism, and eugenics, and praises the inclusion of Bengali science fiction in 'The Inhumans and Other Stories.' The episode concludes with Tony thanking Amy and closing the show.

As heard by us

A discount card, a phone call, and an office grind shape one stubborn story.

StarShipSofa No. 741 gives Tony C. Smith an easy welcome before settling into Matthew Kressel's Movie Night, a bleak, wry story about work, grief, and the small routines that keep people moving.

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Why you'd press play

You get a discount code that comes wrapped in grief and office gloom.

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