Tag Archives: Future

Forgotten

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If S.J. Watson’s Before I Go To Sleep was too scary for you, but you like the idea of waking up every morning with a clean slate, try Cat Patrick’s teen take on amnesia in Forgotten.   London Lane can see the future every day, but then forgets what happened to her yesterday; she wakes up with her forecasts, but no memory of anything that happened the day before.  She keeps a daily log, and writes notes to herself, but sometimes get lost in the details – just like many of us who walk into a room and wonder what we were looking for.

London keeps her Cassandra-like tendencies to herself, not warning her high school friends about bad choices that seem to be leading to miserable future lives.  She still believes in free will; maybe something will happen to change their future after all, and then she discovers she can manipulate and change the future for the better.  A mysterious flash-forward to a funeral creates a mystery to solve, and London’s strange memory disorder helps her solve it.

An easy fast read with a strange twist –  young adult mystery – a nice change of pace.

Physics of the Future

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If you are still here – no rapture – no end of the world, have a little faith and read a little about the future.  In Physics of the Future, Mikio Kaku describes how science will shape human destiny and our daily lives by the year 2100.  If Jules Verne and Leonardo da Vinci could accurately predict our lives today with the help of scientists, why not imagine the world of the future?

In a series of chapters that cover the futures of computers, medicine, energy, travel, and more, Kaku delivers possibilities that he says, along with eight pages of 300 scientists, are probabilities.  In 100 years, everyone will go online by blinking (super contacs); MRI machines will be pocket-sized; and, of course, robots will be everywhere – unless, we revert to our Neanderthal mind-set, and stifle progress.

The last chapter gets a little hokey – not for the predictions, but for the delivery. Kaku’s “A Day in the Life in 2100” includes scenarios that include analytic sensors in the mirror and the toilet – to check for abnormalities. Unfortunately, Kaku tries to write imaginary dialogue for “the date” and “the office”  during the day. He would have been better to stick to the dry scientific theory.

Despite the halting prose with information that most futurists already have, the book might make you want to live for 100 more years to see it all.

If you are still here, remember, the Mayans give us only another year.