Sci-Fi Past Predictions

I love science fiction. I read the books. I watch the movies. There’s a lot of really great books and short stories. Unfortunately, there are very few good movies. (Hollywood seems to think science fiction is a horror movie that takes place in space instead of Texas.) There’s been some excellent television. I’m really into the new Battlestar Galactica. Star Trek (in all its forms) is closest to my heart.
Science is a “hook” for the story to hang on. There’s a prophetic angle to sci-fi where the reader gets to see a possible future of technology. Computers have been main characters in many stories. Almost all stories predicted instant communication and access to a wealth of information. That has largely come true. Except the computer I’m using right now is a far cry from the Hal 2000 – which may be a good thing since I don’t want it trying to kill me while singing, “Daisy”.
Sci-fi has also made other strange predictions that have failed to see the light of day besides self-aware (and mentally disturbed) computers. I remember smiling to myself when I saw the first “Time Machine” movie based on H. G. Wells’ book. Here is a device which controls the fabric of time but relies on clockwork mechanisms and rotary dials. Or there is “Fantastic Voyage” where a future America has the technology to shrink a nuclear powered submarine and send it into a human body. The pilots of this sub have to rely on rolls of paper charts to navigate their way through the blood vessels. No blip on a T.V. monitor or even a G.P.S.
Then there is Star Trek. This show had it all. Medical tricorders to diagnose diseases and injuries, transporters, cloaking devices, and shields. What’s remarkable here is that all of these exist in some form or another today. There was the announcement a few weeks ago that researchers made a successful cloaking device. Sure, it only made a small copper cylinder invisible to microwaves, but it is a start. The University of Alberta has a team with a prototype (and again simple) portable diagnostic device. Several labs around the world are now “beaming” atoms and molecules from one side of the lab to the other. They are not beaming people or even mice, but this just shows that what seemed really strange in the 1960′s can become possible.
So, what are today’s science fiction writers predicting? I’ll let you know in a couple weeks . . .