Which Science Fiction Visions of the World Tomorrow Will Come Closest to the Actual Future?
- Thread starter BAYLOR
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Question 1: "The Martian" --- Because none of what is portrayed [save the killer sandstorm at the beginning of the book/movie] requires something which couldn't be handled in the next 20 years or so.
Question 2: When the assumptions have been proven false. Like those early S.F. novels which found intelligent life (at least on a par with human intelligence) on Mars and/or Venus.
Question 2: When the assumptions have been proven false. Like those early S.F. novels which found intelligent life (at least on a par with human intelligence) on Mars and/or Venus.
J Riff
The Ants are my friends..
Well, since people can't handle any real ET disclosure... we should hope for.... War with the Newts; because we might have a chance against Newts, if they weren't TOO huge, and if they didn't have Newtonian death-rays. But they probably do. *
Well, with the state of the world today... Any post-apocalyptic book.
Well, in one sense it's as @Parson says: once the posited vision is no longer possible. And yet, in another sense that isn't necessarily the case (prevaricate much?
). What I mean is... it's still possible to enjoy great fiction in worlds or settings that aren't possible. For example, Edgar Rice Burroughs' Carson of Venus books took place on a world with a) a human-breathable atmosphere, and b) a solid planetary surface. At the time it might have been thought possible - but I think now science has proved this simply isn't correct. So, in theory that vision of the world* in those books is obsolete, but even though I know that I still love those books. Granted, for some (possibly many) people this may mean they never pick up those books or put them down once they encounter those misconceptions, but some people will still enjoy them.* I'm not sure it was strictly a vision of the "world of tomorrow" at the time it was written (like the Mars series it may have been set earlier than the author's own era) but some of the setting was, I think, based on the prevailing scientific beliefs of the time (i.e. Venus had a solid outer crust) so it's kind of on-topic, right?
Danny McG
"Anything can happen in the next half hour!"
One of rhe main things of being a sci fi fan is we're all big dreamers and eagerly await (well I do!) a real alien encounter. Friendly preferred so we could welcome them to our world. Hostile so we could end up trashing them if that is their choice.
Either way I'm getting bored of Fermi wet-blanketing my hopes of contact
Read Cixin Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past series and you might find a) a plausible answer to the Fermi Paradox (everyone out there is keeping their heads down) and b) a very well reasoned explanation why you would want to keep your head down and what might happen if you do let yourself be known to the rest of the galaxy.
In answer the first thread question, I'd agree with @Parson's The Martian, but I'd also sadly include Children of Men with it's depiction of refugees/asylum seekers and their treatment and internment by a future police state. The way things are going today I think such a future is getting increasingly likely.
Amelia Faulkner
Well-Known Member
I think there's a tendency to think of one setting as a generic "the future," but the fact is that the future currently contains countless billions of years. Any or all fictional futures might come into being at one point or another. No post-apocalyptic setting is going to be anything other than a phase, for instance. Perhaps a phase that lasts hundreds of years, but so long as the human race survives we'll rebuild. Maybe differently, maybe the same (or same-ish). The Dark Ages lasted (in theory) around 800 years but we finally got out of it. Who's to say we won't go from Children of Men to Star Trek to Mad Max to Divergent?
Danny Creasy
Well-Known Member
The Road
My opinion is that the most faithful portrayal of the future is the one (with many variants) leading from such novels as Accelerando (near future) to Queen of Angels (slightly further out) to the end stage of that portrayed in the Culture books, Orion's Arm and the Diaspora sequence - technology and AI running rampant, eventually leading to a society that many (perhaps most) of us would find difficult to understand.
A society containing weakly godlike entities is going to be very different from ours.
A society containing weakly godlike entities is going to be very different from ours.
dask
dark and stormy knight
One can only hope a for a far future as envisioned by HG Wells in The Time Machine. Tall Starbucks and a peanut butter banana sandwich, sit back and enjoy the view. What a way to go.
Danny Creasy
Well-Known Member
It get's my second place vote.Blade Runner ?
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Big business having more power and influence than government.
You see it more and more these days, especially the way the immoral way that consumers are misinformed and duped on an almost daily basis.
Facebook and Apple are great examples.
You see it more and more these days, especially the way the immoral way that consumers are misinformed and duped on an almost daily basis.
Facebook and Apple are great examples.
This series prophetic in a number of ways.
ZlodeyVolk
The Lurker at the Keyboard
A little of 1984, a little of Brave New World, set against the backdrop of Waste Land (2010); with just a dash of 'The Long Walk', to taste. Most of the fixin's are already in place.
You might find LIMBO by Bernard Wolfe to be of interest
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