Think about the Future

Spring 2002, Sharon Goetz

When one sets out to write the near future, what does one include or exclude? How does one identify the real and the imaginary when creating myth if none of the events portrayed has taken place? To what extent is imagining the future bound to the past, and how much control do writers and readers have over the textual changes they make? Who, indeed, has access to a future, and to whom is access denied?
(Texts given below in reading order.)

Lethem, Jonathan. “Access Fantasy.” Starlight 2. Ed. Patrick Nielsen Hayden. New York: Tor Books, 1998. 198-215.

Butler, Octavia. “Positive Obsession.” Bloodchild and Other Stories. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1995. 125-36. [Originally in Essence, 1989.]

Dance, Daryl C., ed. Excerpts from Folklore from Contemporary Jamaicans. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1985.

Hopkinson, Nalo. Midnight Robber. New York: Warner Books, 2000.

Ford, John. “Mandalay.” From the End of the Twentieth Century. Ed. Paul J. Giguere. Framingham, MA: NESFA Press, 1997. 54-78. [Originally in Asimov’s, Oct 1979.]

Chiang, Ted. “Story of Your Life.” Starlight 2. Ed. Patrick Nielsen Hayden. New York: Tor Books, 1998. 257-313.

Zelazny, Roger. “24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai.” Frost and Fire. New York: Morrow, 1989. 203-77. [Originally in Asimov’s, Jul 1985.]

Teasdale, Sara. “There Will Come Soft Rains.” The Collected Poems of Sara Teasdale. New York: Macmillan, 1937. Literature Online, Chadwyck-Healey. 1 Jan 2002 .

Bradbury, Ray. “August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains.” The Vintage Bradbury: Ray Bradbury’s Own Selection of His Best Stories. New York: Vintage Books, 1990. 322-29. [Originally in The Martian Chronicles, 1950.]

Butler, Octavia. “The Evening and the Morning and the Night.” Bloodchild and Other Stories. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1995. 35-70. [Originally in Omni, 1987.]

Stephenson, Neal. Snow Crash. 1992. New York: Bantam Books, 2000.

Bear, Greg. “Blood Music.” Visions of Wonder. Eds. David G. Hartwell and Milton T. Wolf. New York: Tor Books, 1996. 31-48. [Originally in Analog, Jun 1983.]

“Tam Lin: 39A.” The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. Ed. Francis James Child. Vol. 1. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1882-98. 5 vols. “The Tam Lin Pages.” Ed. Abigail Kitaguchi. 31 Dec 2001 .

Charnas, Suzy McKee. “Listening to Brahms.” Vanishing Acts. Ed. Ellen Datlow. New York: Tor Books, 2000. 16-42. [Originally in Omni, Sep 1989.]

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