Science Fiction and the Prediction of the Future

Science Fiction and the Prediction of the Future PDF Author: Gary Westfahl
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786484764
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
Science fiction has always challenged readers with depictions of the future. Can the genre actually provide glimpses of the world of tomorrow? This collection of fifteen international and interdisciplinary essays examines the genre's predictions and breaks new ground by considering the prophetic functions of science fiction films as well as SF literature. Among the texts and topics examined are classic stories by Murray Leinster, C. L. Moore, and Cordwainer Smith; 2001: A Space Odyssey and its sequels, Japanese anime and Hong Kong cinema; and electronic fiction.

Science Fiction and the Prediction of the Future

Science Fiction and the Prediction of the Future PDF Author: Gary Westfahl
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786484764
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 271

Get Book Here

Book Description
Science fiction has always challenged readers with depictions of the future. Can the genre actually provide glimpses of the world of tomorrow? This collection of fifteen international and interdisciplinary essays examines the genre's predictions and breaks new ground by considering the prophetic functions of science fiction films as well as SF literature. Among the texts and topics examined are classic stories by Murray Leinster, C. L. Moore, and Cordwainer Smith; 2001: A Space Odyssey and its sequels, Japanese anime and Hong Kong cinema; and electronic fiction.

Visions of Tomorrow

Visions of Tomorrow PDF Author: Tom Easton
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing Inc.
ISBN: 1602399980
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
Gathers science fiction stories that accurately predicted future developments, including "The Land Iron Clads" by H.G. Wells, which foresaw tank warfare in 1903, and a tale that so closely depicted the atomic bomb in 1944 it worried the FBI.

The Twenty Days of Turin: A Novel

The Twenty Days of Turin: A Novel PDF Author: Giorgio De Maria
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 1631492306
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 119

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Book Description
An NPR Best Book of the Year Written during the height of the 1970s Italian domestic terror, a cult novel, with distinct echoes of Lovecraft and Borges, makes its English-language debut. In the spare wing of a church-run sanatorium, some zealous youths create "the Library," a space where lonely citizens can read one another’s personal diaries and connect with like-minded souls in "dialogues across the ether." But when their scribblings devolve into the ugliest confessions of the macabre, the Library’s users learn too late that a malicious force has consumed their privacy and their sanity. As the city of Turin suffers a twenty-day "phenomenon of collective psychosis" culminating in nightly massacres that hundreds of witnesses cannot explain, the Library is shut down and erased from history. That is, until a lonely salaryman decides to investigate these mysterious events, which the citizenry of Turin fear to mention. Inevitably drawn into the city’s occult netherworld, he unearths the stuff of modern nightmares: what’s shared can never be unshared. An allegory inspired by the grisly neo-fascist campaigns of its day, The Twenty Days of Turin has enjoyed a fervent cult following in Italy for forty years. Now, in a fretful new age of "lone-wolf" terrorism fueled by social media, we can find uncanny resonances in Giorgio De Maria’s vision of mass fear: a mute, palpitating dread that seeps into every moment of daily existence. With its stunning anticipation of the Internet—and the apocalyptic repercussions of oversharing—this bleak, prescient story is more disturbingly pertinent than ever. Brilliantly translated into English for the first time by Ramon Glazov, The Twenty Days of Turin establishes De Maria’s place among the literary ranks of Italo Calvino and beside classic horror masters such as Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. Hauntingly imaginative, with visceral prose that chills to the marrow, the novel is an eerily clairvoyant magnum opus, long overdue but ever timely.

Stand on Zanzibar

Stand on Zanzibar PDF Author: John Brunner
Publisher: Orb Books
ISBN: 1429978848
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 576

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Book Description
The brilliant 1969 Hugo Award-winning novel from John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar, now included with a foreword by Bruce Sterling Norman Niblock House is a rising executive at General Technics, one of a few all-powerful corporations. His work is leading General Technics to the forefront of global domination, both in the marketplace and politically---it's about to take over a country in Africa. Donald Hogan is his roommate, a seemingly sheepish bookworm. But Hogan is a spy, and he's about to discover a breakthrough in genetic engineering that will change the world...and kill him. These two men's lives weave through one of science fiction's most praised novels. Written in a way that echoes John Dos Passos' U.S.A. Trilogy, Stand on Zanzibar is a cross-section of a world overpopulated by the billions. Where society is squeezed into hive-living madness by god-like mega computers, mass-marketed psychedelic drugs, and mundane uses of genetic engineering. Though written in 1968, it speaks of now, and is frighteningly prescient and intensely powerful. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Plum Rains

Plum Rains PDF Author: Andromeda Romano-Lax
Publisher: Soho Press
ISBN: 1616959029
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
In a tour-de-force tapestry of science fiction and historical fiction, Andromeda Romano-Lax presents a story set in Japan and Taiwan that spans a century of empire, conquest, progress, and destruction. 2029: In Japan, a historically mono-cultural nation, childbirth rates are at an all-time low and the elderly are living increasingly longer lives. This population crisis has precipitated the mass immigration of foreign medical workers from all over Asia, as well as the development of finely tuned artificial intelligence to step in where humans fall short. In Tokyo, Angelica Navarro, a Filipina nurse who has been in Japan for the last five years, works as caretaker for Sayoko Itou, a moody, secretive woman about to turn 100 years old. One day, Sayoko receives a present: a cutting-edge robot “friend” that will teach itself to anticipate Sayoko’s every need. Angelica wonders if she is about to be forced out of her much-needed job by an inanimate object—one with a preternatural ability to uncover the most deeply buried secrets of the humans around it. Meanwhile, Sayoko becomes attached to the machine. The old woman has been hiding secrets of her own for almost a century—and she’s too old to want to keep them anymore. What she reveals is a hundred-year saga of forbidden love, hidden identities, and the horrific legacy of WWII and Japanese colonialism—a confession that will tear apart her own life and Angelica’s. Is the helper robot the worst thing that could have happened to the two women—or is it forcing the changes they both desperately needed?

An Express of the Future

An Express of the Future PDF Author: Michel Verne
Publisher: The Floating Press
ISBN: 1776672011
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 9

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Book Description
Though originally attributed to his father, Jules Verne, due to an error on the part of the publisher, the short tale "An Express of the Future" was actually penned by Jules Verne's often-estranged son, Michel. The story is remarkable in its prescient description of future technologies, such as pneumatic tubes.

A Logic Named Joe

A Logic Named Joe PDF Author: Murray Leinster
Publisher: Baen Books
ISBN: 0743499107
Category : Science fiction, American
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
Three complete novels, one of them a Hugo Award finalist, with a number of short stories.

The Future of Work

The Future of Work PDF Author: Jacob Morgan
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118877241
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
Throughout the history of business employees had to adapt to managers and managers had to adapt to organizations. In the future this is reversed with managers and organizations adapting to employees. This means that in order to succeed and thrive organizations must rethink and challenge everything they know about work. The demographics of employees are changing and so are employee expectations, values, attitudes, and styles of working. Conventional management models must be replaced with leadership approaches adapted to the future employee. Organizations must also rethink their traditional structure, how they empower employees, and what they need to do to remain competitive in a rapidly changing world. This is a book about how employees of the future will work, how managers will lead, and what organizations of the future will look like. The Future of Work will help you: Stay ahead of the competition Create better leaders Tap into the freelancer economy Attract and retain top talent Rethink management Structure effective teams Embrace flexible work environments Adapt to the changing workforce Build the organization of the future And more The book features uncommon examples and easy to understand concepts which will challenge and inspire you to work differently.

Physics of the Future

Physics of the Future PDF Author: Michio Kaku
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385530811
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The renowned theoretical physicist and national bestselling author of The God Equation details the developments in computer technology, artificial intelligence, medicine, space travel, and more, that are poised to happen over the next century. “Mind-bending…. [An] alternately fascinating and frightening book.” —San Francisco Chronicle Space elevators. Internet-enabled contact lenses. Cars that fly by floating on magnetic fields. This is the stuff of science fiction—it’s also daily life in the year 2100. Renowned theoretical physicist Michio Kaku considers how these inventions will affect the world economy, addressing the key questions: Who will have jobs? Which nations will prosper? Kaku interviews three hundred of the world’s top scientists—working in their labs on astonishing prototypes. He also takes into account the rigorous scientific principles that regulate how quickly, how safely, and how far technologies can advance. In Physics of the Future, Kaku forecasts a century of earthshaking advances in technology that could make even the last centuries’ leaps and bounds seem insignificant.

Ralph 124C 41+

Ralph 124C 41+ PDF Author: Hugo Gernsback
Publisher: e-artnow
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 120

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Book Description
The eponymous protagonist saves the life of the heroine by directing energy remotely at an approaching avalanche. As the novel goes on, he describes the technological wonders of the modern world, frequently using the phrase "As you know..." The hero finally rescues the heroine by travelling into space on his own "space flyer" to rescue her from the villain's clutches.