Chris' Christian Blog

Science Fiction/Science Facts

"Science Fiction/Science Facts" 

Blogging Circle of Friends prompt January 6, 2017 - Do you remember your childhood fears and visions of what the future would hold? What dramatic changes in society have you witnessed?

I don't really see a whole lot of changes that surprise me at all. I remember sitting in class in the sixth grade one day. It must have been toward the end of the Vietnam War, perhaps 1971 or 1972, thinking about the turn of the century. I knew I would be 39 years old when Y2K rolled around and was unable to imagine myself at that age. Now I can barely remember that age! However I was a science fiction buff and had written several science fiction stories that contained many of the things we take for granted today. I remember writing about hand held mobile phones though I don't remember what I called them. I know it wasn't cell phones. I also remember writing about one of my characters ordering things for his home on his personal computer. This in itself was quite a stretch of the imagination because computers in those days were usually larger than most homes. I also remember writing about space shuttles and yes I called them shuttles because I had learned the term by watching science fiction on television. I remember writing about people watching television on their walls. In this case the walls themselves converted into televisions. While that hasn't happened yet, there are very few homes that don't have televisions that cover a large portion of their walls today. When I was in the sixth grade you were considered fortunate if you had a 36 inch floor model color television. I also remember writing about how my characters could turn on their televisions and select from hundreds of channels. That was an extremely futuristic thought because most of us had to go on top of a tall hill to turn an antenna to bring in the two channels we did get. Even then the reception was terrible.

So I don't see a whole lot of surprising changes today. I have always felt and still do feel that today's science fiction writers are merely writing tomorrow's science facts.