Futures from Nature

By Henry Gee

Book Overview

Here are 100 very short stories on the subject of the future and what it might be like. The authors include scientists, journalists, and many of the most famous SF writers in the world. "Futures from Nature" includes everything from satires and vignettes to compressed stories and fictional book reviews, science articles, and journalism, in eight-hundred word modules. All of them are entertaining and as a group they are a startling repository of ideas and attitudes about the future. Appearing in book form fo the first time, these one hundred pieces were originally published in the great science journal, "Nature," between 1999 and 2006, as one-page features. That proved very popular with the readers of the journal. This is a unique book, by scientists and writers, of interest to any reader who might like to speculate about the future. With stories from: Arthur C. Clarke; Bruce Sterling; Charles Stross; Cory Doctorow; Greg Bear; Gregory Benford; Oliver Morton; Ian Macleod; Rudy Rucker; Greg Egan; Stephan Baxter; Barrington J. Bayley; Brian Stableford; Frederik Pohl; Vernor Vinge; Nancy Kress, Michael Moorcock, Vonda N. McIntyr; Kim Stanley Robinson; John M. Ford; and eighty more.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0765318059
• ISBN13: 9780765318053
• Release Date: November 2007
• Publisher: Tor Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.99 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.1" x 1.2" x 6.2"

Customer Reviews

Good book for smart teenagers

My 14 year old son really liked this book. Small enough bites that you can digest at one sitting, but challenging as well.

Excellent for airport security lines

This is a great book to dip into for a few minutes at a time. The pieces are short enough to finish in a few minutes each and they (mostly) provide decent enough food for thought. It's perfect for those times when you just need to stay somewhat engaged with your surroundings (waiting around for something to happen) but risk dying of boredom or frustration if you don't do something. Don't think I could face reading the whole thing in one shot though....

Delightful

These are mostly 1-2 page stories, quick reads, but thought-provoking, and it introduces (me to) a lot of authors.

Perfect remedy for short attention spans ;)

Having read these quite short (a page or two) stories when they came out in Nature, I can say you will enjoy them. I don't recall any that struck me with a deep fascination, but on the other end very few ended up in my mind's recycling bin. The novelty is in having so many "short short" stories compiled, allowing you to read something even with very little time on your hands, and in the nature of their authors, who weren't all science-fiction writers.