You Call This The Future?

Happy leap year!  Here's what I've been up to:

You Call This The Future? The Greatest Inventions Sci-Fi Imagined And Science Promised will be hitting bookshelves this April.

It's a collaboration with Mark Frary and Andy Walker, two wonderful science & technology writers.  I'm holding an advance copy in my hand and I'm very happy with what a fun and informative read it is. 

You Call This The Future? is an exploration of technologies that have tantalized us in science fiction for many years but have yet to materialize in the world of today.  We go in search of flying cars, warp drives, artificial intelligence, time travel, terraforming and many more, with a total of 50 inventions in all.  How are we doing on those cybernetic exoskeletons?  What's the hold up on force fields? 

Hope you pick up a copy and enjoy it as much as I've enjoyed working on it.

Comments

[Audrey Harper]

I will definitely be picking up a copy!

[Brett Lundmark]

Umm, not to burst your bubble or anything, but this book already exists. It's called "Where's my Jetpack", by Daniel H. Wilson. Which is a better title by the way, but I suppose you couldn't actually copy his book exactly.

[Nick Sagan]

Brett, don't worry, you haven't burst my bubble. A few points:

1.) Work on "You Call This The Future?" began long before Daniel H. Wilson's "Where's My Jetpack?" ever hit bookstands. While working on this book, I never read Dan's, much less "copied" it, and by the time I was even aware of its existence the bulk of my contributions to "You Call This The Future?" had already been made.

2.) Since working on "You Call This The Future?" I've had a chance to pick up "Where's My Jetpack?" and I think it's an excellent book, very funny and well researched. My hat's off to Dan Wilson.

3.) That said, I don't buy the argument that one book on potential future technology means other books on potential future technology can't or shouldn't be written.

4.) "You Call This The Future?" explores a variety of technologies that Dan's book doesn't, including cloning, terraforming, force fields, the hypnopedia, genetic engineering, bionics, wetware, etc. We have 50 inventions in all, which is almost twice the technologies explored in "Where's My Jetpack?"

5.) Sorry you don't like "You Call This The Future?" as a title. Others have told me they think it's a great title, but what amuses one may leave another cold, and there's simply no pleasing everybody.

[iana]

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