Laila Lalami, Steven MinOn and Madeleine Ryan on mining dreams, a walking corpse and a very bad day

Award-winning Moroccan American author Laila Lalami imagines a world where the most intimate aspects of life are mined for data in her speculative fiction, The Dream Hotel (bloomsbury.com/au/dream-hotel-9781526687142). Australian Chinese writer Steve MinOn goes on a generational discovery tour with a corpse in his debut novel First Name Second Name (uqp.com.au/books/first-name-second-name). And Madeleine Ryan's The Knowing (scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/books/…) reflects on the anxieties of modern life and ambition.