Visions of Tomorrow

May 24, 2010
Identity theft, computer viruses, performance-enhancing drugs, and space elevators are just some of the innovations found in this intriguing anthology. H.G. Wells's grim pre-WWI tale "The Land Ironclads" anticipates the use of tanks in warfare. Jeff Hecht's "Directed Energy" and Thomas Easton's "Matchmaker" offer whimsical uses for high-powered lasers and genetic engineering. Robert Scheckley's black comedy "The Prize of Peril" envisions a deadly precursor to reality TV. Vonda N. McIntyre's "Misprint" foresees a printer capable of creating new organs for transplant. The atomic weapon in Cleve Cartmill's 1944 story "Deadline" proved timely enough to worry the U.S. military. Teen and adult fans of hard SF will appreciate this look back at some of the genre's most insightful work.

June 1, 2010
One naive view of sf is that its trying to predict tomorrows technology. Sf Grand Master Robert Silverbergs introduction suggests, however, that such prognostications are rarely particular and original. Gadgets are seldom correctly envisioned, and when they are, the writers are copping designs and details from engineers. Still, now and then, as the editors put it, science fiction gets it right. H. G. Wells The Land Ironclads envisioned tanks and their deployment more than a decade before WWI. The most notorious sf prophecy, Cleve Cartmills Deadline, had the FBI asking author and Astounding editor John W. Campbell how they came to know of the then-developing, top-secret A-bomb. Both tales appear here, along with stories forecasting reality TV, the Internet (with uncanny social prescience in Murray Leinsters A Logic Named Joe), identity theft, AIDS (though the engineered virus David Gerrold imagines causes sexual sterility, not collapsed immunity), and nine other developments, only two of them still on the drawing board. Curiously, prophetic accuracy and literary distinction dont much coexist. Fun book, anyhow.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)