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DOES SCIENCE FICTION predict the future or does it merely inspire future discoveries?
That’s the question these 15 books force readers to ask themselves as they read about computer hackers, bionic limbs and iPads, all thought up by authors decades and sometimes centuries before the inventions were created.
Inspired by this infographic of seemingly precognitive sci-fi books, we’ve assembled a list of the books that predicted the future.
Keep scrolling to see.
This 1726 social satire follows a man named Gulliver as he travels into different worlds, like one occupied by tiny humans or another inhabited by giants.
But when Gulliver is on the island of Laputa, a floating world filled with scientists, the astronomers notice Mars has two moons in its orbit. Over 150 years later in 1877, it was discovered Mars did indeed have two moons— Phobos and Deimos.
When Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1818, science was just beginning to explore the new realm of dead tissue reanimation through electricity.
And while the early methods were crude to say the least, they paved the way for future medical breakthroughs like the organ transplants that were envisioned in Shelley’s novel.
Jules Verne is known as one of the most forward-thinking authors of the 19th century, predicting everything from lunar modules to solar sails over 100 years before they were invented.
His most famous book, however, is Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Published in 1870, the novel predicted electric submarines 90 years before they were officially invented.
Some 63 years before credit cards were invented, Bellamy had a similar idea in his 1888 Utopian science fiction novel.
After Julian West falls asleep for 113 years and wakes up in the year 2000, he finds that everyone uses credit cards to buy goods. Though the way Bellamy’s cards work is closer to a debit card, it remains nonetheless an interesting prediction.
This early novel by Hugo Gernsback — the man the sci-fi Hugo Book Awards are named after — was written in 1911, but set in the year 2660.
Though this story isn’t quite as exciting as modern sci-fi books due to its weaker plot and formulaic love story, it did predict solar energy, TVs, tape recorders, movies with sound and space travel.
Published in 1914, The World Set Free not only foresaw nuclear weapons, but may have given Dr Leo Szilard, the man who split the atom, the idea for the destructive nuclear bomb in the first place.
Though the atomic bomb in Wells’ universe was a uranium hand grenade — not unlike a regular bomb, but with more radiation — the science behind the idea was still roughly three decades ahead of its time.
This dystopian novel pictures what would happen if the world became a drug-dependent capitalistic society that values sexual freedom over monogamy and separates people into a caste system.
In his 1931 book, Huxley foresaw the use of mood-boosting pills and reproductive technology, and the problems of overpopulation.
Orwell’s 1984 is the classic dystopian novel that is responsible for concepts like Big Brother, doublethink, Newspeak, and the thought police.
Written about a dystopian world nearly 40 years after World War II, the book focuses on topics like censorship, propaganda and oppressive government in a futuristic society. Orwell also predicted mass surveillance and police helicopters in this 1949 classic.
Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451 in 1953 about a technophile society where books are outlawed and any books that still exist are burned.
His dystopian world predicted flat-screen TVs as well as “seashells” and “thimble radios”, which were portable audio devices not unlike earbuds and Bluetooth headsets.
This 1961 novel follows Valentine Michael Smith after he finally comes home to Earth after being raised by Martians since he was a child.
In addition to discussing futuristic topics such as intergalactic politics, Stranger in a Strange Land also predicted waterbeds a decade before they came to fruition.
This 1968 sci-fi book about an alien civilisation creating intelligent life on Earth is filled with serious themes like nuclear war, evolution and the perils of artificial intelligence in the form of the super computer HAL 9000.
But the most accurate prediction from the book were the electronic papers or the “newspad” that people read, which sounds an awful lot like the iPad.
This dystopian novel was first published in 1968 and takes place in 2010. In Brunner’s novel, the United States is grappling with overpopulation and widening social divides.
Aside from the realistic plot, the book predicted quite a few technologies we have today, including on-demand TV, satellite TV, laser printers, electric cars and even the decriminalisation of marijuana.
This 1972 novel follows former-astronaut-turned-pilot Steve Austin, who crashes during a flight, leaving him with only one limb and blind in one eye.
A team of scientists are able to give Austin new legs, a removeable eye with a camera, and a bionic arm, which makes him a ‘cyborg’, or a mixture of man and machine. The book prophesied the first bionic leg transplant by 41 years.
Published in 1979, Arthur Dent is warned by his friend Ford Prefect — a secret researcher for the interstellar travel guide The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — that Earth is about to be demolished.
They escape on an alien spaceship and embark on a bizarre adventure around the universe. One of the things they witness is real-time audio translations with the universal translator, now a reality 34 years later thanks to translation apps.
This futuristic crime caper from 1984 follows a burnt-out hacker and cyber thief whose ability to “jack in” to cyberspace is restored by a miracle cure.
Neuromancer was not only the first novel to win the triple crown of sci-fi awards (the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the Philip K Dick Award) and inspired the Matrix series, but also predicted our future cyberspace society and computer hackers.
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Good luck with that France, you get better behaviour out my 4 year old…
Priti probably thinks a another hundred year war would be good, she thought of trying to starve the Irish…
@Cowboy Ted: French are no angels when it comes to colonial history and who caused these regional instabilities in the first place.
@Thomas O’ Donnell: maybe not but they had our back during the Brexit talks……
@Sean Higgins: “they had our back during the Brexit talks……”
Only because they love sticking it to the Brits.
The Brits are right. A turnback policy would stop them overnight
@Nedwerd: it’s been a long time since the British were right.
@Nedwerd: but it should be deport (return) to their home nation and not a transit country. If these people are in the EU illegally (or legally) it is immaterial, normal deportatiom rules is back to country of origin. Same here if you need a visa to enter Ireland but come across the border from NI you get deported to your home country, not back to NI. Likewise if people need a visa to enter the UK and cross into NI they are not deported back south but sent to their home country. If Ireland were used as a back door to the UK would you think everyone entering the UK illegally should be sent back here.
@Nedwerd: Sure force them to make two hideously dangerous crossings in dingys that’ll cut the numbers down.
The people who take their money tell them the UK is where they need to be and put them in throw away boats are the problem.
Where do the traffickers find their victims and sell them passage ? That’s where this has to be stopped at the start not the end.
A decent internationally organised refugee rescue group should be set up to compete with the traffickers. Undercut the crooks and provide good transport and honest advice to the victims – just don’t look like the authorities they fear, look like a better deal and be one.
The criminals are making a huge profit doing a bad job, surely governments can manage a good job at a small loss. It would be a lot cheaper than this mess.
@Steve O’Hara-Smith: There are charities in North of France trying to help these people but are harassed and intimidated by French police and gangs
@Lamb: They’re in the wrong place. Everyone seems to be working (mostly at cross purposes and badly) on the symptoms instead of the problem. Like sticking plasters on someone rolling in broken glass without stopping them.
There is way too much finger pointing and way to little cooperation and joined up thinking going on.
France is just a conduit it’s not.surprising they don’t like it but arguing about what to do with the spurting hose doesn’t turn off the tap and that’s what’s needed.
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: deportation to home nation is a hard one. How would they prove what country they are originally from they carry no passport
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: Careful lad, you might get accused of talking sense
They took back their own borders so let them look after them. I’m sick and tired of their antics of abusing the good will, political intelligence and diplomatic procedures that the EU respect. Time to let their Brexit hit them and hit them hard.
@2thFairy: Ha the goodwill of the French . No such thing France does what it wants when it wants . Funny how they impound a Scottish trawler but stand by when the migrants are launching their rubber dingy
@2thFairy: Channel crossings went from about 1200 people in 2019 to 25000 in 2021. Go Brexit!!
@Lamb: They also went from dingys to 50 person zodiacs. That takes professional organisation.
I’d like to know if the trips sold to the refugees are end to end or just across the channel. If it’s the former then the channel crissing is the wrong place to look for fixes.
This is what Boris meant by taking back control, lol.
Angleterre Perfide
@Handsome McWonderful: All countries lie it’s called diplomacy and it stinks.
I don’t understand why France feel the need to support or take any responsibility to help the UK with their immigration problem. Britain’s immigration issue is France’s relief valve.
Britain is an outlier of Europe. They voted for Brexit so they could enforce their own immigration rules. The EU has its own immigration problem so why take on Britain’s problems too ?
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