Science fiction predictions

I think of science fiction as being one of the more imaginative genres of literature. After all a science fiction story has to do all the things every other kind of story does, plot, character development, setting the scene, building relationships, etc., plus it has to introduce at least one wonder that the readers are unfamiliar with. It could be world building on an alien planet (or our own planet in some unrecognizable future). Or it could introduce a technological wonder or evolutionary advancement.

You often hear science fiction credited with predicting the future. Being an imaginative genre that is often set in the future, this seems like a logical conclusion, especially when you can point to times that science fiction got it right. Way back in the 1800’s Jules Verne showed humans going to the moon. He even showed his astronauts experiencing weightlessness.  Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World talked about genetic engineering. Science fiction grand master Arthur C. Clarke developed the concept of the communication satellite. Though to be fair, he did not actually do this in a science fiction story, but in an article for a British magazine.

But . . . if you take a close look at it, science fiction writers aren’t really any better than anyone else at predicting the future. If you take 500 science fiction writers writing about life in the future, you have to imagine that at least a handful of them would come up with something that later seemed to be prescient. Those handful are the ones that get noticed. You never hear talk about all the rest that got it wrong. 2001: A Space Odyssey is probably one of the most influential science fiction movies ever made. While it was being made, the space race was on and actually getting to the moon seemed within reach. But what Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke failed to foresee was that after getting to the moon, we would abandon it along with most space exploration for the next fifty years. By 2001 they predicted we would have a giant rotating space station, several bases on the moon and a ship capable of getting humans to Jupiter. I can’t blame them. All of this seemed feasible in 1968, but it was not to be. They were not alone in this. Virtually every futuristic science fiction story written prior to 1969 had us getting to Mars, the asteroids, or other planets by the year 2000.

In the mid 1950’s Frank Herbert wrote the book Under Pressure also known by the title The Dragon in the Sea. It is a tense futuristic submarine warfare novel. But one of the components that are used in the electronics of these submarines is . . . vacuum tubes. By the time this book was written, transistors were starting to revolutionize electronics. He needed vacuum tubes for one of his plot points, so Herbert’s story goes into a detailed explanation about how transistors never replaced vacuum tubes on submarines. I don’t remember what the explanation was. It doesn’t really matter because it was just wrong.

Even Jules Verne’s story From the Earth to the Moon, has problems. Yes it had three men going to the moon in a capsule and then splashing down in the ocean. I will cut Jules some slack for not understanding that you wouldn’t be able to breathe on the moon, or that you would actually experience weightlessness for most of the trip, not just at the exact midpoint between the Earth and Moon. After all, he wrote this in 1865. But I am not going to cut him slack for his method of launching his spacecraft. The capsule got into space by being blasted from a giant cannon. It is difficult to imagine any system or technology even today or in the near future that would allow anyone to survive such a blast.

Not to mention favorite science fiction tropes that are scientifically impossible, like time travel (at least going backward in time) and faster than light travel (well this is probably impossible, but we continue to hold out hope that someone will find a work around). Not that I am criticizing these tropes. They are fun and I like reading (and writing) stories with them included and will continue to do so, but it is not real science.

There are some science fiction predictions that we don’t want to come true, those of dystopian, or post-apocalyptic fiction. These stories are written as warnings of what may happen if we don’t change our ways. I think of Harry Harrison’s novel about over-population Make Room, Make Room. Over-population is still a problem, but the predictions of what the population would be by 1999 did not come to pass. That is probably because of books like Make Room, Make Room.

Science fiction writers have come up with some amazing ideas over the years, some are predictive, some are not. But I don’t read science fiction because I want a prediction of the future. I just want to read great stories.

(My novel Star Liner, is now available as an e-book through Amazon, or the other usual online sources. For those who like to turn physical pages, the paperback will be out soon).

Star Liner