Five SF Books Set in the Future... of 2020

[James Nicoll]

Five SF Books Set in the Future
 of 2020

How did science fiction imagine the world of the 2020s? Let's
look at some of the more entertaining predictions and speculations...

https://reactormag.com/five-sf-books-set-in-the-future-of-2020/

[BCFD 36]

Five SF Books Set in the Future… of 2020
How did science fiction imagine the world of the 2020s? Let's
look at some of the more entertaining predictions and speculations...
https://reactormag.com/five-sf-books-set-in-the-future-of-2020/

Not a one.

[Titus G]

Post by BCFD 36

Five SF Books Set in the Future… of 2020
How did science fiction imagine the world of the 2020s? Let's
look at some of the more entertaining predictions and speculations...
https://reactormag.com/five-sf-books-set-in-the-future-of-2020/

Not a one.

One. I enjoyed Stross' Halting State but did not enjoy Rule 34, (Halting
State 2). I think I just didn't like the writing style and can't
remember the plot nor content despite reading James' outline but I think
that their smart phones were chips in their heads.

[BillGill]

Post by Titus G

Post by BCFD 36

Five SF Books Set in the Future… of 2020
How did science fiction imagine the world of the 2020s? Let's
look at some of the more entertaining predictions and speculations...
https://reactormag.com/five-sf-books-set-in-the-future-of-2020/

Not a one.

One. I enjoyed Stross' Halting State but did not enjoy Rule 34, (Halting
State 2). I think I just didn't like the writing style and can't
remember the plot nor content despite reading James' outline but I think
that their smart phones were chips in their heads.

And now the chips in the head would be a problem, because
how would you upgrade to the new and better chip every
couple of years? And how would you incorporate a camera?

Bill

[Lynn McGuire]

Post by BillGill

Post by Titus G

Post by BCFD 36

Five SF Books Set in the Future… of 2020
How did science fiction imagine the world of the 2020s? Let's
look at some of the more entertaining predictions and speculations...
https://reactormag.com/five-sf-books-set-in-the-future-of-2020/

Not a one.

One. I enjoyed Stross' Halting State but did not enjoy Rule 34, (Halting
State 2). I think I just didn't like the writing style and can't
remember the plot nor content despite reading James' outline but I think
that their smart phones were chips in their heads.

And now the chips in the head would be a problem, because
how would you upgrade to the new and better chip every
couple of years?  And how would you incorporate a camera?
Bill

And what would you do when your chip in your head got hacked ?

You know it happen.

Lynn

[Scott Dorsey]

Post by Lynn McGuire

Post by BillGill
And now the chips in the head would be a problem, because
how would you upgrade to the new and better chip every
couple of years?  And how would you incorporate a camera?

And what would you do when your chip in your head got hacked ?
You know it happen.

You'd immediately go out and buy all the products made by the company
that hired the hackers, and then go vote up and down the ballot for the
straight Bochialist ticket.
--scott

[Titus G]

Post by BillGill

Post by Titus G

Post by BCFD 36

Five SF Books Set in the Future… of 2020
How did science fiction imagine the world of the 2020s? Let's
look at some of the more entertaining predictions and speculations...
https://reactormag.com/five-sf-books-set-in-the-future-of-2020/

Not a one.

One. I enjoyed Stross' Halting State but did not enjoy Rule 34, (Halting
State 2). I think I just didn't like the writing style and can't
remember the plot nor content despite reading James' outline but I think
that their smart phones were chips in their heads.

And now the chips in the head would be a problem, because
how would you upgrade to the new and better chip every
couple of years?  And how would you incorporate a camera?

It was copyright in 2011 so 2020 wasn't that far in the future anyway.
I can't answer because I don't know if that issue was raised. In some of
Alastair Reynolds' novels there are neural implants which are
programmable or altered by remote means without a physical interface
such as Bluetooth.

[BillGill]

Post by Titus G

Post by BillGill

Post by Titus G

Post by BCFD 36

Five SF Books Set in the Future… of 2020
How did science fiction imagine the world of the 2020s? Let's
look at some of the more entertaining predictions and speculations...
https://reactormag.com/five-sf-books-set-in-the-future-of-2020/

Not a one.

One. I enjoyed Stross' Halting State but did not enjoy Rule 34, (Halting
State 2). I think I just didn't like the writing style and can't
remember the plot nor content despite reading James' outline but I think
that their smart phones were chips in their heads.

And now the chips in the head would be a problem, because
how would you upgrade to the new and better chip every
couple of years?  And how would you incorporate a camera?

It was copyright in 2011 so 2020 wasn't that far in the future anyway.
I can't answer because I don't know if that issue was raised. In some of
Alastair Reynolds' novels there are neural implants which are
programmable or altered by remote means without a physical interface
such as Bluetooth.

But every few years the new features won't run on the original
chip set. And they still are going to have a problem with
incorporating a camera. Well, I suppose they could hack into
your visual cortex and record that.

Bill

[Lynn McGuire]

Five SF Books Set in the Future… of 2020
How did science fiction imagine the world of the 2020s? Let's
look at some of the more entertaining predictions and speculations...
https://reactormag.com/five-sf-books-set-in-the-future-of-2020/

"2020 Vision edited by Jerry Pournelle (1974)" looks very familiar. And
I passed on "Directive 51" and the others.

I've got another book at the back of my mind but it refuses to release
the name so far. Maybe "Wolf and Iron" by Gordon Dickson ???
https://www.amazon.com/Wolf-Iron-Gordon-R-Dickson/dp/0812533348/

Or "World Made by Hand" by James Howard Kunstler which one reviewer said
is set around 2015.
https://www.amazon.com/World-Made-James-Howard-Kunstler/dp/0802144012/

Lynn

[Robert Woodward]

Post by Lynn McGuire

Post by James Nicoll
Five SF Books Set in the Future
 of 2020
How did science fiction imagine the world of the 2020s? Let's
look at some of the more entertaining predictions and speculations...
https://reactormag.com/five-sf-books-set-in-the-future-of-2020/

"2020 Vision edited by Jerry Pournelle (1974)" looks very familiar. And
I passed on "Directive 51" and the others.
I've got another book at the back of my mind but it refuses to release
the name so far. Maybe "Wolf and Iron" by Gordon Dickson ???
https://www.amazon.com/Wolf-Iron-Gordon-R-Dickson/dp/0812533348/
Or "World Made by Hand" by James Howard Kunstler which one reviewer said
is set around 2015.
https://www.amazon.com/World-Made-James-Howard-Kunstler/dp/0802144012/

_The Postman_ by David Brin?

[James Nicoll]

Post by Lynn McGuire

Post by James Nicoll
Five SF Books Set in the Future
 of 2020
How did science fiction imagine the world of the 2020s? Let's
look at some of the more entertaining predictions and speculations...
https://reactormag.com/five-sf-books-set-in-the-future-of-2020/

"2020 Vision edited by Jerry Pournelle (1974)" looks very familiar. And
I passed on "Directive 51" and the others.
I've got another book at the back of my mind but it refuses to release
the name so far. Maybe "Wolf and Iron" by Gordon Dickson ???
https://www.amazon.com/Wolf-Iron-Gordon-R-Dickson/dp/0812533348/
Or "World Made by Hand" by James Howard Kunstler which one reviewer said
is set around 2015.
https://www.amazon.com/World-Made-James-Howard-Kunstler/dp/0802144012/

Does not seem to specify a period aside from "Sometime in the
not-distant future. . . ." but "the early twenty-first century"
is in the past.

[Lynn McGuire]

Post by James Nicoll

Post by Lynn McGuire

Five SF Books Set in the Future… of 2020
How did science fiction imagine the world of the 2020s? Let's
look at some of the more entertaining predictions and speculations...
https://reactormag.com/five-sf-books-set-in-the-future-of-2020/

"2020 Vision edited by Jerry Pournelle (1974)" looks very familiar. And
I passed on "Directive 51" and the others.
I've got another book at the back of my mind but it refuses to release
the name so far. Maybe "Wolf and Iron" by Gordon Dickson ???
https://www.amazon.com/Wolf-Iron-Gordon-R-Dickson/dp/0812533348/
Or "World Made by Hand" by James Howard Kunstler which one reviewer said
is set around 2015.
https://www.amazon.com/World-Made-James-Howard-Kunstler/dp/0802144012/

Does not seem to specify a period aside from "Sometime in the
not-distant future. . . ." but "the early twenty-first century"
is in the past.

You are correct. My review says "This book is set roughly in 2030 or
2040.".

Thanks,
Lynn

[Garrett Wollman]

Post by James Nicoll
Five SF Books Set in the Future
 of 2020
How did science fiction imagine the world of the 2020s? Let's
look at some of the more entertaining predictions and speculations...
https://reactormag.com/five-sf-books-set-in-the-future-of-2020/

I have read none of these, unsurprisingly. However, I absolutely did
read a (purportedly non-fiction) book, THE 2025 REPORT: A CONCISE
HISTORY OF THE FUTURE, 1975-2025, published in 1985 by libertarian
British journalist Norman Macrae. (Published a year earlier with like
adjustments to the title in Britain.)

I remember very little of it other than the title and the author's
suggestion that in the future, nationality would be a matter of choice
and not birth, and states would compete, on the basis of economic
"freedom", for citizens. It is perhaps unsurprising that the author
wrote this after spending nearly four decades writing for The
Economist.

-GAWollman

[Bobbie Sellers]

Five SF Books Set in the Future… of 2020
How did science fiction imagine the world of the 2020s? Let's
look at some of the more entertaining predictions and speculations...
https://reactormag.com/five-sf-books-set-in-the-future-of-2020/

Curiously enough I have read several of those but think I
missed the Philip Dick novel and the anthology.

But I happen to be curently reading "Aftermath" by
Charles Sheffield which is set in 2026 published in 1998.
In this novel the world is suffering a double crisis. Alpha Centuri
has gone supenova and the radiation hit the Suuthern Hemisphere
and set offgsome very unpleansanbt weather but the wave of hard
radiation causes a EMP and wipes out all computers not in
Faraday cages.
The USA is center stage of course along wiht a group of aged cancer
victims who have been following a course of treatment involving
destroying the telomeres of their cancer treatment. The Presiden
t is a sane but single man. A Mission is returning from a Mars Landing
and no communication from Ground to Space is available. The technology
is a bit more advanced as the cancer patient have home gendnome
sequencers which of course not long work nor does much htat used
integrated circuit chips.
Capital punishment is gone and in its place we have Judicial Sleep
which is suspended animation with normal aging. This opens with
a serial killer undergoing Judicial Sleep.

That is as far as I have gotten.

bliss

[Scott Dorsey]

Post by Bobbie Sellers
But I happen to be curently reading "Aftermath" by
Charles Sheffield which is set in 2026 published in 1998.
In this novel the world is suffering a double crisis. Alpha Centuri
has gone supenova and the radiation hit the Suuthern Hemisphere
and set offgsome very unpleansanbt weather but the wave of hard
radiation causes a EMP and wipes out all computers not in
Faraday cages.

This is written by someone who is unfamiliar with the inverse square law?
--scott

[Bobbie Sellers]

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Bobbie Sellers
But I happen to be curently reading "Aftermath" by
Charles Sheffield which is set in 2026 published in 1998.
In this novel the world is suffering a double crisis. Alpha Centuri
has gone supenova and the radiation hit the Suuthern Hemisphere
and set offgsome very unpleansanbt weather but the wave of hard
radiation causes a EMP and wipes out all computers not in
Faraday cages.

This is written by someone who is unfamiliar with the inverse square law?
--scott

I dunno what Sheffield is familiar with aside from excellent story
telling skills. But the microchip ending event is the very hard
radiation delayed by the expanding shell of the supernova.

Within the story the effects are credible. In real life asfawk
Alpha Centuri is not the correct sort of star to become a supernova. In
the story that point is raised and then dropped because in the world
of the story it happened regardless of supernova theory. Also in this
version of reality we have not developed a treatment for cance that
involves removing the telomeres of the cancer cells.

It reads though like hard SF and is written. If in 2026
Alpha Centuri for some reason goes nova or even supernova we will
hail Sheffield as a prophet.
I hope it does not happen because prophets have had crazy
ideas for thousands of years.

bliss

[James Nicoll]

Post by Bobbie Sellers

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Bobbie Sellers
But I happen to be curently reading "Aftermath" by
Charles Sheffield which is set in 2026 published in 1998.
In this novel the world is suffering a double crisis. Alpha Centuri
has gone supenova and the radiation hit the Suuthern Hemisphere
and set offgsome very unpleansanbt weather but the wave of hard
radiation causes a EMP and wipes out all computers not in
Faraday cages.

This is written by someone who is unfamiliar with the inverse square law?
--scott

I dunno what Sheffield is familiar with aside from excellent story
telling skills. But the microchip ending event is the very hard
radiation delayed by the expanding shell of the supernova.
Within the story the effects are credible. In real life asfawk
Alpha Centuri is not the correct sort of star to become a supernova. In
the story that point is raised and then dropped because in the world
of the story it happened regardless of supernova theory.

I believe in the second book, Alpha C's nova turns out to have
been assisted, and also that the explosion was assymetric.

[Scott Dorsey]

Post by James Nicoll

Post by Bobbie Sellers

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Bobbie Sellers
But I happen to be curently reading "Aftermath" by
Charles Sheffield which is set in 2026 published in 1998.
In this novel the world is suffering a double crisis. Alpha Centuri
has gone supenova and the radiation hit the Suuthern Hemisphere
and set offgsome very unpleansanbt weather but the wave of hard
radiation causes a EMP and wipes out all computers not in
Faraday cages.

This is written by someone who is unfamiliar with the inverse square law?

I dunno what Sheffield is familiar with aside from excellent story
telling skills. But the microchip ending event is the very hard
radiation delayed by the expanding shell of the supernova.

Right, and as the shell gets larger and larger, it becomes less and less
dense. The radiation still has lots of energy, but there is less of it.

We get very high energy cosmic rays here that are very high energy,
enough to easily penetrate through the Van Allen belts and the atmosphere
and my roof. They leave annoying streaks on the photographic film stored
in my freezer, and they keep on going. But there aren't a lot of them,
so other than some fogging they aren't a serious threat.

Post by James Nicoll

Post by Bobbie Sellers
Within the story the effects are credible. In real life asfawk
Alpha Centuri is not the correct sort of star to become a supernova. In
the story that point is raised and then dropped because in the world
of the story it happened regardless of supernova theory.

I believe in the second book, Alpha C's nova turns out to have
been assisted, and also that the explosion was assymetric.

A CME directed toward the earth might make for something more measurable
here, although it would have to be pretty narrow.
--scott

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Bobbie Sellers

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Bobbie Sellers
But I happen to be curently reading "Aftermath" by
Charles Sheffield which is set in 2026 published in 1998.
In this novel the world is suffering a double crisis. Alpha Centuri
has gone supenova and the radiation hit the Suuthern Hemisphere
and set offgsome very unpleansanbt weather but the wave of hard
radiation causes a EMP and wipes out all computers not in
Faraday cages.

This is written by someone who is unfamiliar with the inverse square law?

I dunno what Sheffield is familiar with aside from excellent story
telling skills. But the microchip ending event is the very hard
radiation delayed by the expanding shell of the supernova.

Right, and as the shell gets larger and larger, it becomes less and less
dense. The radiation still has lots of energy, but there is less of it.

You're assuming that the radiation from the supernova is omnidirectional -
is that a safe assumption? Consider a gamma ray burst, for example,
which can be highly focused in effect - and are blamed for at least one
mass-extinction event here on earth.

[Paul S Person]

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by James Nicoll

Post by Bobbie Sellers

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by Bobbie Sellers
But I happen to be curently reading "Aftermath" by
Charles Sheffield which is set in 2026 published in 1998.
In this novel the world is suffering a double crisis. Alpha Centuri
has gone supenova and the radiation hit the Suuthern Hemisphere
and set offgsome very unpleansanbt weather but the wave of hard
radiation causes a EMP and wipes out all computers not in
Faraday cages.

This is written by someone who is unfamiliar with the inverse square law?

I dunno what Sheffield is familiar with aside from excellent story
telling skills. But the microchip ending event is the very hard
radiation delayed by the expanding shell of the supernova.

Right, and as the shell gets larger and larger, it becomes less and less
dense. The radiation still has lots of energy, but there is less of it.
We get very high energy cosmic rays here that are very high energy,
enough to easily penetrate through the Van Allen belts and the atmosphere
and my roof. They leave annoying streaks on the photographic film stored
in my freezer, and they keep on going. But there aren't a lot of them,
so other than some fogging they aren't a serious threat.

IIRC, the reason computer hard drives began coming with their own
error detection and correction is because, occasionally, a cosmic ray
would flip a bit.

Which isn't much of a problem with 360K floppies or even 20MB hard
drives, but once you get up into the GB (or TB), bit flips start
happening on a regular recurring basis.

This ultimately made SpinRite not as necessary as it once was, as the
hard drives were doing the work themselves.

Post by Scott Dorsey

Post by James Nicoll

Post by Bobbie Sellers
Within the story the effects are credible. In real life asfawk
Alpha Centuri is not the correct sort of star to become a supernova. In
the story that point is raised and then dropped because in the world
of the story it happened regardless of supernova theory.

I believe in the second book, Alpha C's nova turns out to have
been assisted, and also that the explosion was assymetric.

A CME directed toward the earth might make for something more measurable
here, although it would have to be pretty narrow.

[Robert Woodward]

Post by James Nicoll
Five SF Books Set in the Future
 of 2020
How did science fiction imagine the world of the 2020s? Let's
look at some of the more entertaining predictions and speculations...
https://reactormag.com/five-sf-books-set-in-the-future-of-2020/

This reply is a bit late, but I was just looking at my database of books
bought and read and a comment I made decades ago for one book caught my
attention. I give you _Touch the Stars: Emergence_ by John Dalmas and
Carl Martin (published by Tor in 1983). The chapter heads include dates,
chapter 1 being set on September 16, 2024. I don't remember much about
it (I think it could be called a gadget story), but there appears to be
a E-book edition available. Oh, the comment: "King Charles III makes a
brief appearance".

[Robert Woodward]

Post by Robert Woodward

Post by James Nicoll
Five SF Books Set in the Future
 of 2020
How did science fiction imagine the world of the 2020s? Let's
look at some of the more entertaining predictions and speculations...
https://reactormag.com/five-sf-books-set-in-the-future-of-2020/

This reply is a bit late, but I was just looking at my database of books
bought and read and a comment I made decades ago for one book caught my
attention. I give you _Touch the Stars: Emergence_ by John Dalmas and
Carl Martin (published by Tor in 1983). The chapter heads include dates,
chapter 1 being set on September 16, 2024. I don't remember much about
it (I think it could be called a gadget story), but there appears to be
a E-book edition available. Oh, the comment: "King Charles III makes a
brief appearance".

However, when I checked that e-book edition; I discovered that the text
had been revised and expanded.