15 Books on The
Future
Brief Notes on the Art and Manner of Arranging One’s Books By Georges Perec
Introduction
This book includes text from Georges Perec’s Brief Notes on the Art and Manner of Arranging One’s Books in addition to a total of fifteen books that explore the genre of sci-fi. For some background information, Georges Perec was a French novelist, filmmaker, documentalist, and essayist. He was a member of the Oulipo group, and many of his works deal with absence, loss, and identity, often through word play due to the heavy impact World War II left on him.
The Base Line A Brief Explanation For every book spread there will be a thin grey base line, this line is to represent the base value, it is not necessarily at 0, but rather a median or average that was determined from the data gathere1d throughout all of the books and the values, depending on the book, they can go above or below the line. The categories of numerical value for each are publication year, rating, and page count. For publication year, the base year is 2000, then for rating, the base rating is 4.4, and then for page count, the average page count is 300 pages. Each rating moves vertically by a set number of .02 inches.
2
Table of Contents Altered Carbon
4
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
6
Perec Text Introduction
8
We Are Legion (We are Bob) 10 The Martian
12
Perec Text Introduction Continued 14 Snow Crash 16 1984 18 Perec Text 1. Of Space 20 The Engines Of God 22 Stellaris: Infinite Horizons 24 Perec Text 1. Of Space Continued 26 Halo: Fall of Reach 28 Leviathan Wakes 30 Perec Text 1. Of Space Continued 32 Planetfall 34 Ares Express 36 Perec Text 2. Of Order 38 Mobile Suit Gundam: Awakening 40 Starship Troopers 42 Mass Effect: Revelation 44 Time Line Graph 46 Takeaway 48
Altered Carbon Richard Morgan In the future of UN Resolution 653, mankind has achieved the ability to be somewhat immortal. This is done through people being able to store their consciousness and being able to put their consciousness into a new body. With this new method of survival, bodies are now seen as “sleeves”, where people can re-sleeve themselves after death. However, in this society, for those that follow catholicism, they do not believe in this system of sleeves for it denies one access to Heaven and at the same time, easy targets for murder. What is interesting about this process of re-sleeving is that many are willing to go through the whole aging process each time. Meaning that they cannot continue where they left off in their primary body, thus ultimately discouraging people from re-sleeving multiple times and resulting in many choosing to not live indefinitely. In addition to that, the people that are able to resleeve more than once are typically the wealthy and some do it continuously along with having their minds stored in a remote storage that get regular updates.
4
Published
2002
Average Rating
4.4/5
“In front of me softly shaped grey furniture was evolving from the floor like a sculpture from a pool of mercury. A plain metal table first, then two chairs this side, one op posite. Their edges and surfaces ran liquidly smooth for the final seconds of their emergence, then snapped solid arid geometric as they took on an existence separate to the floor.”
Pages
375
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Philip K. Dick The setting is in 2021 where a great war known as World War Terminus has devastated Earth by heavily polluting the a tmosphere with radioactive fumes. This results in much organic life to die off and become scarce, which leads to the importance of the remaining living animals. The remaining animals soon become a status symbol for wealth and culture since most organic animals became extinct and there was a huge push for greater preservation of life on Earth. The United Nations is pushing for people to have mass migrations off of Earth to off-world colonies to preserve mankind. They incentivise this through rewarding people with free personal androids, where they are robot servants that look identical to humans. These andoids are created by the Rosen Association on Mars, but some androids rebel and escape, typically to Earth. This leads to American and Soviet police departments to keep the employment of bounty hunter officers.
6
Pages
635 Average Rating Published
1968
4.5/5
“Deckard enters the building, experiencing strange, supernatural premonitions of Mercer notifying him of an ambush. Since they attack him first, Deckard is legally justified as he shoots down all three androids without testing them beforehand. Isidore is devastated, and Deckard is soon rewarded for a record number of Nexus-6 kills in a single day”
Brief Notes on the Art and Manner of Arranging One’s Books Georges Perec
Every library answers a twofold need, which is often also a twofold obsession: that of conserving certain objects (books) and that of organizing them in certain ways. One of my friends had the idea one day of stopping his library at 361 books. The plan was as follows: having attained, by addition or subtraction, and starting from a given number of books, the number K = 361, deemed as corresponding to a library, if not an ideal then at least a sufficient library, he would undertake to acquire on a permanent basis a new book X only after having eliminated (by giving away, throwing out, selling or any other appropriate means) an old book Z, so that the total number of works should remain constant and equal to 361: K + X >361> K - Z. As it evolved this seductive scheme came up against predictable obstacles for which the unavoidable solutions were found. First, a volume was to be seen as counting as one (1) book even if it contained three (3) novels (or collections of poems, essays, etc.); from which it was deduced that three (3) or four (4) or n (n) novels by the same author counted (implicitly) as one (1) volume by that author, as fragments not yet brought together but ineluctably bringable together in a Collected Works.
Books
361 Whence it was adjudged that this or that recently acquired novel by this or that English language novelist of the second half of the nineteenth century could not logically count as a new work X but as a work Z belonging to a series under construction: the set T of all the novels written by the aforesaid novelist (and God knows there are some!).1 This didn’t alter the original scheme in any way at all: only instead of talking about 361 books, it was decided that the sufficient library was ideally to be made up of 361 authors, whether they had written a slender opuscule or enough to fill a truck.
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) Dennis E. Taylor Bob wakes up 117 years later to find corpsicles declared to be without rights, and he is now the property of the state called FAITH. He has been uploaded into computer hardware and is slated to be the controlling AI in an interstellar probe looking for habitable planets. The stakes are high: no less than the first claim to entire worlds. If he declines the honor, he’ll be switched off, and they’ll try again with someone else. If he accepts, he becomes a prime target. There are at least three other countries trying to get their own probes launched first, and they play dirty. The safest place for Bob is in space, heading away from Earth at top speed. Or so he thinks. Because the universe is full of nasties, and trespassers make them mad – very mad.
10
Published
2016
Average Rating
4.6/5
“As a machine though, you would just be deactivated. Part of my job though is to write thinking so that you can be a good servant of the state.”
Pages
383
The Martian Andy Weir In 2035, Nasa sends a crew of Astronauts to Mars to stay there for a month as part of the Ares 3 mission. After six days on Mars, a powerful windstorm on Mars devastates the base resulting in an antenna hitting the astro botanist of the team, Mark Watney, which sends him flying out of sight. The storm makes it too treacherous for the team to look for Watney and they have to go on without him. It then turns out that Watney is not dead, but now he must survive on his own until he can figure out a way to get back in contact with Earth.
12
Published
2011
Pages
Average Rating
4.7/5
“Mindy Park stared at the ceiling, she had little else to do, the 3 am shift was pretty dull. Only a constant stream of coffee kept her awake . monitoring the status of satellites around mars had sounded like an exciting proposition when she took the transfer, but the satellites took care of themselves. Her job turned out to be sending out emails as imagery came available.”
387
This modification proved effective over several years. But it soon became apparent that certain works - romances of chivalry, for example - had no author or else had several authors, and that certain authors - the Dadaists, for example - could not be kept separate from one another without automatically losing 80 to 90 per cent of what made them interesting. The idea was thus reached of a library restricted to 361 subjects - the term is vague but the groups it covers are vague also at times - and up until now that limitation has been strictly observed. So then, one of the chief problems encountered by the man who keeps the books he has read or promises himself that he will one day read is that of the increase in his library. Not everyone has the good fortune to be Captain Nemo: ‘...the world ended for me the day my Nautilus dived for the first time beneath the waves. On that day I bought my last volumes, my last pamphlets, my last newspapers, and since that time I would like to believe that mankind has neither thought nor written.’ . Captain Nemo’s 12,000 volumes, uniformly bound, were thus classified once and for all, and all the more simply because the classification, as is made clear to us, was uncertain, at least from the language point of view (a detail which does not at all concern the art of arranging a library but is meant simply to remind us that Captain Nemo spoke all languages indiscriminately).
Volumes
12,000 But for us, who continue to have to do with a human race that insists on thinking, writing and above all publishing, the increasing size of our libraries tends to become the one real problem. For it’s not too difficult, very obviously, to keep ten or twenty or let’s say even a hundred books; but once you start to have 361, or a thousand, or three thousand, and especially when the total starts to increase every day or thereabouts, the problem arises, first of all of arranging all these books somewhere and then of being able to lay your hand on them one day when, for whatever reason, you either want or need to read them at last or even to reread them Thus the problem of a library is shown to be twofold: a problem of space first of all, then a problem of order.
Snow Crash Neil Stephenson It is the 21st century and a worldwide economic collapse has brought the world to knees with the focus being in Los Angeles. It is not longer a part of the United States since the government gave most of its power and territory to private organizations and business owners. Plus most of the world’s territory has been divided by sovereign groups, each having their own corporation running them. In addition to this, hyperinflation is rampant to the point that trillion dollar bills are worth very little and electronic currency is the dominant form of payment. This equates to the dominance of a cyberverse in society for people, which is a large scale virtual reality simulation that people use to socialize since it allows people to show off their social status and that the cyberverse is how some people go into clubs.
16
Pages
Published
1992
Average Rating
4.2/5
“The franchise and the virus work on the same principle: what thrives in one place will thrive in another. You just have to find a sufficiently virulent business plan, condense it into a three-ring binder -- its DNA -- Xerox(tm) it, and embed it in the fertile lining of a well-traveled highway, preferably one with a left-turn lane. Then the growth will expand until it runs up against its property lines .”
480
1984 George Orwell The story is set in 1984 where humanity has been rampaged by war, civil conflict, and revolution. Great Britain becomes nothing more but a province of the nation of Oceania, a totalitarian super-state out of three others that rule the world. There is a ruling party known as “Ingsoc”, which is short for “English Socialism”, who employ a special police force known as the thought police along with incorporating constant surveillance technology. This is done to eliminate those that do not fully conform with the party who are known as “thoughtcriminals”. Those who are more towards being commoners are known as proletariat and are referenced as “proles”.
18
Pages
Published
1949
Average Rating
4.7/5
“Winston tells Julia that the Party has made them inhuman by severing familial ties and loyalties, and by its attempt to alter histories. The proles, he says, are the only human creatures left.”
328
1. Of Space 1.1 Generalities
Books are not dispersed but assembled. Just as we put all the pots of jam into a jam cupboard, so we put all our books into the same place, or into several same places. Even though we want to keep them, we might pile our books away into trunks, put them in the cellar or the attic, or in the bottoms of wardrobes, but we generally prefer them to be visible. In practice, books are most often arranged one beside the other, along a wall or division, on rectilinear supports, parallel with one another, neither too deep nor too far apart. Books are arranged usually - standing on end and in such a way that the title printed on the sine of the work can be seen (sometimes, as in bookshop windows, the cover of the books is displayed, but it is unusual, proscribed and nearly always considered shocking to have only the edge of the book on show). In current room layouts, the library is known as an ‘area’ for books. This, most often, is a module belonging as a whole to the ‘living-room’, which likewise contains a drop-leaf drinks cabinet drop-leaf writing desk two-door dresser hi-fi unit television console slide projector display cabinet etc. and is offered in catalogues adorned with a few false bindings. In practice books can be assembled just about anywhere.
1.2 Rooms where books may be put • • • •
in the entrance hall in the sitting room in the bedroom(s) in the bog
Generally speaking, one kind of book is put in the room you cook in, the ones known as ‘cookery books’. It is extremely rare to find books in a bathroom, even though for many people this is a favourite place to read in. The surrounding humidity is unanimously considered a prime enemy of the conservation of printed texts. At the most, you may find in a bathroom a medicine cupboard and in the medicine cupboard a small work entitled What to do before the doctor gets there.
The Engines of God Jack McDevitt The setting is in the year of 2202 and Earth is faced with a dangerously rising sea-level problem along with mass pollution. This has also caused humanity to face mass famine, leading humanity to focus the resources they have left to migrate off-world. Thankfully, humanity found an alien statue that depicted an alien life form on Lapetus, a moon of Saturn that helped humanity strive further for intergalactic travel. The story primarily follows Priscilla Hutchins, who is also known as “Hutch” and the three planets of Pinnacle, Quraqua, and Inakademeri. Pinnacle is a planet that was inhabited by an extremely intelligent species millions of years prior, but is now a harsh unbearable planet. Then Quraqua is a planet that is very similar to Earth that had also been home to a very intelligent species until they too became extinct. Finally, there is Inakademeri, also known as “Nok”, which is a moon of a gas giant, and is home to the only intelligent species that is alive other than humanity. These aliens are known as the Noks, who are actually very similar to humanity in regards to technology. 22
Published
1994
Average Rating
4.4/5
“Almost overnight, every civilization on this globe had died. It had happened twice: somewhere around 9000 B.C., and again eight thousand years later.”
Pages
432
Stellaris: Infinite Frontiers Steven Savile The setting is on a planet called Unity, where humanity has colonized off world centuries ago. The planet is sadly decaying due to the first trailblazers that set foot on the planet, for their goal was to colonize it for themselves and maybe the generation after them. Though, for the many generations after them, that was out of their scope of vision. This led to the technology of mankind on Unity to pretty much take step backwards, so much so that they had to start from the beginning and re-discover everything. The people that live on Unity are ruled by a group known as the Council Elders and they are ones that the Listeners reported to, which is the occupation of the protagonist of this story. His name is Hayden Quinn, and his job is to listen to the stars.group known as the Council Elders and they are ones that the Listeners reported to, which is the occupation of the protagonist of this story. His name is Hayden Quinn, and his job is to listen to the stars.
24
Published
2016
Average Rating
3.7/5
“They had machines that scanned thefrequencies, of course, monitoring the wavelengths for anomalies, but for all their logic the machines couldn’t yet match the instinctive genius of the human mind. That was just the way it was. People accepted that. It would change, of course. They were working on A.I., though it was still impossible to imagine there could ever be anything artificial about intelligence. Surely that was the essence of man, his soul?”
Pages
242
1. Of Space 1.3 Places in a room where books
can be arranged
On the shelves of fireplaces or over radiators (it may be thought, even so, that heat may, in the long run, prove somewhat harmful), between two windows, in the embrasure of an unused door, on the steps of a library ladder, making this unusable (very chic), underneath a window, on a piece of furniture set at an angle and dividing the room into two (very chic, creates an even better effect with a few pot-plants).
1.4 Things which aren’t books but
are often met with in libraries
Photographs in gilded brass frames, small engravings, pen and ink drawings, dried flowers in stemmed glasses, matchbox-holders containing, or not, chemical matches (dangerous), lead soldiers, a photograph of Ernest Renan in his study at the Collége de France,* postcards, dolls’ eyes, tins, packets of salt, pepper and mustard from Lufthansa, letter-scales, picture hooks, marbles, pipe-cleaners, scale models of vintage cars, multicoloured pebbles and gravel, ex-votos, springs.
2. Of Order A library that is not arranged becomes disarranged: this is the example I was given to try and get me to understand what entropy was and which I have several times verified experimentally. Disorder in a library is not serious in itself; it ranks with ‘Which drawer did I put my socks in?’. We always think we shall know instinctively where we have put such and such a book. And even if we don’t know, it will never be difficult to go rapidly along all the shelves.
Opposed to this apologia for a sympathetic disorder is the small-minded temptation towards an individual bureaucracy: one thing for each place and each place for its one thing, and vice versa. Between these two tensions, one which sets a premium on letting things be, on a good-natured anarchy, the other that exalts the virtues of the tabula rasa, the cold efficiency of the great arranging, one always ends by trying to set one’s books in order.
This is a trying, depressing operation, but one liable to produce pleasant surprises, such as coming upon a book you had forgotten because you could no longer see it and which, putting off until tomorrow what you won’t do today, you finally re-devour lying face down on you bed.
Halo: Fall of Reach Eric Nylund The setting of this story takes place in the 26th century, where mankind has colonized hundred of worlds in Earth’s interstellar region. The ones pioneering the endeavor for space travel is the United Nations Space Command. Such as their ships being equipped with onboard artificial intelligence that helps to speed up maintenance, logistics, and managing. In addition to that the ships are equipped with engines that are capable of traveling faster than the speed of light with the core of the ship being a Magnetic Accelerator Cannon, which is a coilgun capable of firing metallic projectiles at immense speeds. Though, not only are their ships highly equipped, but the UNSC also equips their very best, who are known as Spartans, with powered suits known as the MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor System. This suit allows spartans to truly become a supersoldier by enhancing all of their physical capabilities, but initially required intense physical training and surgeries for it to work. From the initial testing of the armor to mankind fighting for their survival, it all begins on the planet Reach. 28
Pages
Published
2011
Average Rating
4.8/5
“She should feel safe here. Reach was one of the UNSC’s largest industrial bases, ringed with high-orbit gun batteries, space docks, and a fleet of heavily-armed capital ships. On the planet’s surface were Marine and Navy Special Warfare training grounds, OCS schools, and between her underground facilities and the surface were three hundred meters of hardened steel and concrete. The room where she now stood could withstand a direct hit from an 80-megaton nuke.”
448
Leviathan Wakes James A. Corey The setting is many years in the future where humanity has colonized much of the solar system. Though, this does not mean all of mankind is united as one, there are three different factions, the Earth United Nations, Mars Congressional Republic, and the outer planets where there are many smaller factions that fight for power such as the Belters and the OPA (Outer Planet Alliance). Along with this, space travel is a commodity for mankind, with 297 ships mentioned throughout the book, but space travel still has its risks. There are numerous advancements since the achivevement of constant space travel, such as power armor that the more powerful factions create for their space marines, personal hand terminals that project screens, and portable welding torches that can operate in space. However, this does not mean that all of space is for mankind to explore because soon they find out that they might not truly be alone and it is up to mankind to find out more.
30
Pages
592 Published
2011
Average Rating
4.6/5
“Holden tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair and thought about the choices. It was possible that the hull modifications Tycho had made to the Roci were fooling the Earth corvette’s recognition software. They might just ignore the Roci, thinking she was a Belter gas runner that happened to be hanging around. But the Roci was running without a transponder, which made her illegal no matter what hull configuration she was showing.”
2.Of Order
2.1 Ways of arranging books • • • • • • • • • • • •
ordered alphabetically ordered by continent or country ordered by colour ordered by date of acquisition ordered by date of publication ordered by format ordered by genre ordered by major periods of literary history ordered by language ordered by priority for future reading ordered by binding ordered by series None of these classifications is satisfactory by itself. In practice, every library is ordered starting from a combination of these modes of classification, whose relative weighting, resistance to change, obsolescence and persistence give every library a unique personality.
We should first of all distinguish stable classifications from provisional ones. Stable classifications are those which, in principle, you continue to respect; provisional classifications are those supposed to last only a few days, the time it takes for a book to discover, or rediscover, its definitive place.
This may be a book recently acquired and not yet read, or else a book recently read that you don’t quite know where to place and which you have promised yourself you will put away on the occasion of a forthcoming ‘great arranging’, or else a book whose reading has been interrupted and that you don’t want to classify before taking it up again and finishing it, or else a book you have used constantly over a given period, or else a book you have taken down to look up a piece of information or a reference and which you haven’t yet put back in its place, or else a book that you can’t put back in its rightful place because it doesn’t belong to you and you’ve several times promised to give it back, etc.
In my own case, nearly three-quarters of my books have never really been classified. Those that are not arranged in a definitively provisional way are arranged in a provisionally definitive way, as at the OuLiPo. Meanwhile, I move them from one room to another, one shelf to another, one pile to another, and may spend three hours looking for a book without finding it but sometimes having the satisfaction of coming upon six or seven others which serve my purpose just as well.
Planetfall Emma Newman Hundreds of years in the future Humanity was led to an unknown structure on a planet unknown initially by scientists that was hidden within the system because the pathfinders saw it as the salvation of humanity since Earth was not finite. Mankind attempted to colonize the planet and make their way towards the structure, but not all made it to salvation, the planet was treacherous and unkind. So much so it tore families apart, brought people to madness, and was the end for thousands. This event would be known as Planetfall for the history of mankind. Those that made it brought along some of mankind’s most advanced technologies in order to colonize around the structure, from 3D printers to artificial intelligence and advanced even more so when they found their salvation. Though, the truth of whether or not this monument being the salvation of mankind is something the colonists find out for themselves.
34
Published
2015
Average Rating
3.9/5
“People have printers in their homes that are capable of printing various things ranging from small items for the home to things such as a pancreas. People have retinal cameras. Most things in the society have AI software. Virtual keyboards can be summoned through thought process. People live in a colony by an alien structure known as God’s City. 22 years in the future where humans live on a different planet. All the rest of humanity that attempted to get to God’s-City on the planet died, the event was known as Planetfall.”
Pages
336
Ares Express Ian Mcdonald The setting of this book is on a terraformed Mars, where it has been changed to the point to where humans have no need for space suits. There are only pockets of civilization few and far in between since man has only populated Mars for roughly thirty years. To connect these pockets of civilization are streams of railroads spanning the planet with trains that can serve as moving cities, housing hundreds of people, and constantly on the move. This story however, focuses on a scientist who is deemed as a “space hobo”, as he treks the desert of Mars and eventually creates Desolation Road.
36
Pages
Published
2010
Average Rating
3.7/5
“On the open rear balcony was a fine city lady in a sheer lace dress. Wake turbulence tugged her parasol from her fingers. It soared up and away, a bamboo and waxed-paper flying saucer. The city lady looked up, vexed, and in that moment her eyes met those of the black-haired girl in the orange track vest in the wrought-iron carbuncle on the flank of the big hauler.”
389
2. Of Order
2.2 Books very easy to arrange
The big Jules Vernes in the red binding, very large books, very small ones, Baedekers, rare books or ones presumed to be so, hardbacks, volumes in the Pléiade collection, the Présence du Futur series, novels published by the Editions de Minuit, collections, journals of which you possess at least three issues, etc.
2.3. Books not too difficult
To arrange
Books on the cinema, whether essays on directors, albums of movie stars or shooting scripts, South American novels, ethnology, psychoanalysis, cookery books (see above), directories (next to the phone), German Romantics, books in the Que Sais-je? series (the problem being whether to arrange them all together or with the discipline they deal with), etc.
2.4. Books just about impossible to arrange The rest: for example, journals of which you possess only a single issue, or else La Campagne de 1812 en Russie by Clausewitz, translated from the German by M. Bégouën, CaptainCommandant in the 31st Dragoons, Passed Staff College, with one map, Paris, Librairie Militaire R. Chapelot et Cie, 1900; or else fascicule 6 of Volume 91 (November 1976) of the Proceedings of the Modern Language Association of America (PMLA) giving the programme for the 666 working sessions of the annual congress of the said Association.
Like the librarians of Babel in Borges’s story, who are looking for the book that will provide them with the key to all the others, we oscillate between the illusion of perfection and the vertigo of the unattainable. In the name of completeness, we would like to believe that a unique order exists that would enable us to accede in knowledge all in one go; in the name of the unattainable, we would like to think that order and disorder are in fact the same word, denoting pure chance.
It’s possible also that both are decoys, illusions intended to disguise the erosion of both books and systems. It is no bad thing in any case that between the two our bookshelves should serve from time to time as joggers of the memory, as cat-rests and as lumber-room.
Mobile Suit Gundam Awakening Yoshiyuki Tomino The setting is in UC (Universal Century) 0079, mankind has colonized off world since the beginning of the Universal Century, but agree that those who occupy space are to treat Earth as the crown jewel of humanity. A large portion of mankind lives on floating tubes that are constantly spinning for the sake of having artificial gravity, in addition to that are also equipped with oxygen to allow humans to easily survive, these are to be known as Space Colonies. As mankind grows ever more in space, the division between those who are born on Earth and those who are born in space grows. Soon enough the division grows to the point where the people of space want independence, forming the faction of ZEON to fight against the EFF (Earth Federation Forces) and leading to a new kind of combat, combat with mobile suits.
40
Published
1990
Average Rating
5/5
“The Pegasus was finally on a real mission, to proceed to Side 7 and pick up the new Mobile Suits. It was time for Ralv to teach the newcomers about the ship, about the Core Fighters. It was time for young men to learn to submerge their wills to that of the ship. On the Pegasus, the best of the White Base class, that was the way things were done.”
Pages
212
Starship Troopers Robert Heinlein The setting is 700 years in the future where mankind has developed star ships that can travel faster than the speed of light and have recognized that they are not the only intelligent lifeforms in the galaxy. Mankind is united under one front as the Terran Federation, which has enabled humanity to efficiently make advancements in technology such as power suits that allowed soldiers to become superhuman known as the Marauder suit, which focused on allowing infantry to carry heavy weapons for long durations of time such as heavy lasers. In addition to that, with humanity exploring the galaxy, they soon find out that they are not alone in the universe.
42
Average Rating Published
1987
4.6/5
“But here is how it works, minus the diagrams. The inside of the suit is a mass of pressure receptors, hundreds of them. You push with the heel of your hand; the suit feels it, amplifies it, pushes with you to take the pressure off the receptors that gave the order to push. That’s confusing, but negative feedback is always a confusing idea the first time, even though your body has been doing it ever since you quit kicking helplessly as a baby. Young children are still learning it; that’s why they are clumsy. Adolescents and adults do it without knowing they ever learned it — and a man with Parkinson’s disease has damaged his circuits for it.”
Pages
263
Mass Effect: Revelation Drew Karpyshyn The setting is in 2157 where humanity has achieved intergalactic travel through the discovery of ancient alien technology left on a hidden base on Mars. With this discovery, mankind united under a single alliance in order to push efforts to bring mankind into the realm of space and colonize, advancing in technology never seen before in the history of mankind, and soon stumbling upon a large machine known as a mass relay. Such advancements in technology were having starships be equipped with shields that allowed them to not be fragile while in space, known as mass effect shields, which also became incorporated into armor. Thus, with the discovery of the mass relay, mankind took their first steps into the galactic realm and off to meet other intelligent life.
44
Published
2007
Average Rating
4.4/5
“Humanity decoded information found from a bunker on Mars that had technology from an ancient highly advanced people known to be called the Protheans. Once this information was decoded, humanity’s technology made large advancements in such a short time that within a year mankind was populating the solar system in orbiting space stations with the use of new technologies known as mass effect fields that allowed man to travel faster than the speed of light throughout space and obtain new sources of energy allowing man to thrive more than ever.”
Pages
336
Timeline of The Future
46
Stellaris: Infinite Horizons
The Engines of God
1984
Snow Crash
The Martian
We are Legion (We are Bob)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
Altered Carbon
This line graph displays how far into the future the book settings are, with the highest points being considered unknown and the median line being the year 2000. The points are plotted according to an increment system of every 50 years before and after 2000.
Mass Effect: Revelation
Starship Troopers
Mobile Suit Gundam Awakening
Ares Express
Planetfall
Leviathan Wakes
Halo: Fall of Reach
Unknown
2500
2000
48
The past, the present, and the future of possibility These 15 books that explore the genre of sci-fi and endless possibilities are beautiful examples of what people believe the future to be. How people envision the future is truly personal to every individual hence what makes all these books stand out from another, each vision is unique with endless possibility. To the person reading this, it would be appropriate to say that during the time of reading, it is during the time frame of someone’s vision of the future, whether it be what they thought it would be or something completely different. It is the beauty of the future of endless possibility.
Designed by David Pham
