Writing Our Future
Mark Rabideau
Science Fiction fans will get this. Over the years, artists, musicians, filmmakers, poets, and perhaps especially authors, have eerily imagined fantastic worlds and futures forged within the deep recesses of their minds and shared them with audiences in such compelling ways that they’ve helped us experience the future now.
Jules Verne foretold distinct aspects of the Apollo 11 landing in his 1865 book, From the Earth to the Moon. George Orwell’s 1984 predicted the end of privacy, as “Big Brother” watched our every move. Bionic limbs (Martin Caidin’s Cyborg, 1972), satellite television (John Brunner’s Stand on Zanzibar, 1968), and “newspads” and voice-activated virtual assistants (Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968) stretched our imaginations as writers painted a vivid picture of a universe that dared to go where no man has gone before; a place that would in the years to come, become familiar, ubiquitous.
