Manyebook

Future Quartet

What awaits our children and grandchildren half a century hence? Will their America be a paradise of plenty — a crime and pollution-free high-tech Eden? Or will the greed and shortsighted excess of our present time beget misery and despair — dooming future generations for centuries to come? These are the questions posed to four of our most respected and prescient speculators on the future-possible — the award-winning giants in the field of science fiction: Ben Bova, Frederik Pohl, Jerry Pournelle, and Charles Sheffield. Basing his projections on current technological, scientific, environmental and biomedical forecasts, each author offers a unique, startling and eminently probable overview of tomorrow — and then brings his posited world to remarkable life in a related masterwork of short fiction. From the utopian to the dystopian — from the guardedly optimistic to the pessimistically hopeful — here are four radically different, yet equally viable visions of the near-future. Stroll with an aimless vagabond through Frederik Pohl's terrifying Third World America — and into a rich man's impossible dream of space flight. Get a taste of the good life from Charles Sheffield — while learning the tragically high cost of civilization. Experience the grim realities of day-to-day living in Ben Bova's crumbling city of disposable people — and take a grand tour through "Higher Education"...with reservations. A dream, a nightmare...or a combination of the two, the future will be whatever we make of it. And now you hold that future in your hands.

  • Format
  • paperback
  • Pages
  • 10
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9780380718863
  • Genres
  • anthologies
  • Release date
  • 1995