Origin story

3 min read Original article ↗
  • FUTURES

By

  1. Alex Shvartsman

    1. Alex Shvartsman is a writer and translator from Brooklyn, New York. You can find more hilarious robots but with less apocalyptic gloom in his novel The Best of All Possible Planets, a space opera comedy take on Candide, coming from UFO Publishing in July 2026.

A stone statue of a fish sits on a plinth marked with the letters WWDD and the name DAVE

Illustration: Jacey

I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-01077-8

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