Surveillance

1949 · George Orwell · 328 pages · Dystopian Fiction

George Orwell published this novel in 1949, and it has only become more relevant with every passing decade. The world he built is so complete and so disturbing that it gave the English language new words for things people had always feared but couldn't quite name. It drags in places, its characters exist to serve the argument more than themselves, and the reading experience is closer to endurance than entertainment. None of that matters much when you consider what it accomplishes. This is one of those books that changes how you think about power, language, and truth, and that change doesn't fade.

2011 · 5 Seasons · CBS · Sci-Fi / Crime / Thriller

What started as a slick CBS procedural about a billionaire and an ex-operative saving people in New York quietly transformed into one of the most prescient and philosophically ambitious science fiction shows of the decade. Person of Interest's exploration of artificial intelligence, mass surveillance, and the nature of consciousness was years ahead of the cultural conversation, and it delivered that intellectual weight inside a framework that also produced exceptional action sequences and deeply compelling character work. The show's evolution from number-of-the-week to serialized AI epic is one of television's great magic tricks.

2018 · Anna Burns · 348 pages · Literary Fiction

A relentlessly inventive novel about a young woman stalked by a paramilitary figure in an unnamed Northern Irish city during the Troubles, written in a singular voice that captures the suffocating psychology of life under community surveillance.