One of the fun things about being a Science Fiction fan is seeing how previously predicted futures pan out as time passes. But the truth is, very few writers from the past managed to get anything right. Even the grandfather of the genre, H.G. Wells, was invariably off the mark when he tied himself down with certain events happening by certain dates. Probably his most accurate forecast was in The Last War, written in 1914, in which he predicted the atomic bomb, although his bomb kept exploding continuously.
Arthur C. Clarke deserves much kudos for predicting in the 1950s that the Earth would be ringed by satellites to aid communication, but as we get closer to today, much of what has been invented over the last generation cannot be found predicted in books written thirty or more years ago. And a lot of what was predicted has not come to pass. Continue reading “Indie News Beat: Future Shock”
