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FUTURE_FRAGMENTS

I promised some random thoughts, 
so let's be random about it.    
                                


   new urbanist 
   science fiction 
                  
       A brave new 
       low-tech 
       world.         Or, low-energy, 
                      but high-tech.
                      

               A world whose primary 
               difference from ours 
               is not technical advance 
               but a determination 
               to be different

Perhaps:

  The future is a place in which 
  it's hard to tell stories. 

  Too many problems have been solved 
  for an interesting problem to fall 
  within the grasp of individual heroes.       

    Even the old reliables of adventure        
    fiction "chasing after the macguffin"      
    is often derailed by ease of communication.
                                         
      Why not get on the cell phone   
      and call for help?
         
      And what *is* the macguffin?  
      A microdot?  Oh, *please*...
      just send it over the network 
      already.  



  But maybe: a future in which we 
  can tell stories would be a future 
  in which we'd like to live.


Much interesting SF could be
written working with a
hypothetical social change as        (Though the distinction 
primary premise.                     between "social" and    
                                     "technical" isn't always
                                     clear.)                 

        
In conversation with the Toadkeeper:           
                                           
      DOOM:     "What would the horror fiction of the 
                future look like?  It's easy to       
                imagine the residents of Asimov's     
                _Caves of Steel_ telling stories about     
                strange monsters outside the walls of     
                the city, but that's just present-day     
                phobias transported to another        
                setting.  The question is can you come     
                up with a phobia that that doesn't yet     
                exist?"                               
                        
   TOADKEEPER:  (pause) "Fear of not being watched."  
         



              What if, in a panic, congress                    
              decided to outlaw _______.                    
                                                            
              What if a country in ________ invented        
              a new type of business organization,             
              that was radically different from the          
              usual _________, and became extremely         
              sucessful...                                  
                                                            
              What if a new fad developed for __________.   
                                                            

                                                            
                        What if they all woke up?           



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