On the grim subject of networked surveillance, maybe Orwell was just a big, mean, bring-down pessimist. On the other hand, we haven't yet seen an Internet society in the grip of a genocidal land war. Security videocams are already ubiquitous; they've become too commonplace for fiction to notice. Huxley and Orwell, of course, didn't think of themselves as science-fiction writers. The true artists of the genre are a tribe apart. Many created "future histories" that are worked out in exquisite detail. Robert A. Heinlein, for instance, was a hugely popular SF writer but of a surprisingly gloomy and gothic cast. His prediction for the late 20th century was summed up briskly: "Considerable technical advance during this period, accompanied by a gradual deterioration of mores, orientation and social institutions, terminating in mass psychosis." It was hard to watch the Clinton impeachment trial without feeling ol' Bob was on to something.

Heinlein also forecast a 21st century America seized by evil right-wing Christian fundamentalists plugged into cunning propaganda networks. These way-out notions of Heinlein's were composed in the 1940s; he probably thought he was being very provocative, out there and outrageous.

Time has been less kind to other works of SF, despite hard work and serious intent. Harry Harrison's novel "Make Room! Make Room!" (source of the movie "Soylent Green") predicted a New York City crammed with 35 million people, each allotted a meager four square yards of living space. That novel is set today--in 1999. It was published in 1966. The scenario made sense back then, before the advent of widespread birth control. All you had to do was follow the exponential curves.

If the tag end of the century resembles the work of any single SF writer, it must surely be J.G. Ballard. One might make an argument for the prescience of William Burroughs (if you're a junkie) or the uncanny knack of William Gibson (if you're a career computer criminal). But Ballard is surely the most insightful artist the genre ever produced. While most SF writers of his generation were down at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory cheering on the moon landings, Ballard was in a London art gallery throwing a Pop Art happening with a crashed car and a topless model. Ballard's approach to the future was never rooted in engineering, physics or rocket science but rather in medicine, psychology and surrealism. Time has been kind to him.

Ballard was the first SF writer to realize that there was something basically lunatic about space travel. Ballard never predicted events or devices; instead, he described future sensibilities--how it might feel, what it might mean. A bizarre contemporary event like the paparazzi car-crash death of Princess Diana is perfectly Ballardian. No flow chart, no equation, no profit projection could ever have predicted that, but if you've read Ballard, you swiftly recognize the smell of it. I daresay that's the best the SF genre will ever do--and no more should ever be asked of it.

Science-fiction writer Bruce Sterling has published 12 books. His seventh novel, Distraction, was released in December

< < Previous  1 | 2

		The Appeal By: John Grisham				A Thousand Splendid Suns By: Khaled Hosseini				7th Heaven (Women's Murder Club) By: James Patterson