Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. So lately, I've been spending a lot of my free time watching YouTube videos about city planning. I know, I know I'm a wild man and need to calm down, but bear with me. Anyway, it's been illuminating to see that how cities and suburbs and roads end up in this country isn't an accident.

These are the result of policy decisions made by the people in power to favor people in power.

And there's no reason to think that the situation won't be the same when our corporate overlords start colonizing space.

That's essentially the premise of Tochi Oniubuchi's book, Goliath.

And in this interview with NPR's Juana Summers,

Oniabuchi talks about how he played with images of destruction and rebuilding to point out

very plainly the disparities between races and classes.

Who gets to live in space and who doesn't?

Picture a not-too-distant future,

one where humans leave this planet and move to live in space colonies.

Well, some humans.

Only an affluent few are able to escape to the shiny new colonies,

while those with less privilege are stuck on an increasingly

hostile earth, living with the consequences of climate change and struggling to survive.

This is the world author Tochi Oniabuchi imagines in his new book, Goliath. It's a haunting take

on a future that is caused by events that feel all too real right now.

And Tocchio-Nabuchi joins us now from his home in New Haven, Connecticut.

Hey, welcome to the program.

Thank you for having me.

So in Goliath, there are some pretty clear divides on who gets to leave Earth and who has to stay.

And I know we mentioned wealth, but we should just be super

clear here that it's black and brown people who are left behind. Why was it so important to

...