The best books on a future we probably want to avoid

Dark Matter has a compelling premise: in the near future, someone creates a machine that mimics Schrodinger’s cat thought experiment—to potentially devastating consequences. But countering the story’s scientific plotline is the main character’s drive to reunite with his family (in multiple ways, which you’ll discover if you read it).

This mix of science and humanity resonated with me and influenced me when I wrote my book. The science in Dark Matter was handled well, with Crouch showing the science rather than stopping the story with pages of exposition.

Gripping, yet scary in its implications if this technology is ever created (I’m looking at you, AI-developers), Dark Matter is an amazing ride.

Peper’s novel is about how the technology available in the near future, which seems like a gift, can be used against you. (Sound familiar?)

In this instance, it is being used to potentially change humanity’s fate, and the main character has to decide what to do about it, if anything. The book stuck with me as it involves power, corruption, and the risks of relying too much on technology.

It’s a complex story, trying to encapsulate the threats our future holds, not only in terms of technology but the damage to our environment and how both could impact our survival.

There are elements of my novel in terms of having neural feeds, though the story explores how life would be experienced if you could capture every moment (not that I personally want to capture everything that happens in my own life).

To me, Crichton’s strength was taking scientific knowledge/achievements and crafting stories that showed how they could impact us.

Yes, he took those to extremes (DNA sequencing to create dinosaurs, robots that revolt against their human masters, and so), but that’s the job of a writer. Prey is not his best-known work but is mesmerizing in terms of the type of future that could exist. His story uses a mix of swarm technology, biology, and AI to craft a cautionary tale, with a main character who has to fight to save his loved one.

Crichton uses biology as part of his support for how his future could take place, with implications that I think few consider as we develop more sophisticated technology. A scary future indeed.

Suarez’s debut novel focuses on an all too real possibility of our future—and the dangers we could face.

Daemon warns of our reliance on computers as he tells a fast-paced story about a massive software program that awakens and initiates a terrible plan no one can decipher. We seem to accept that computers are programmed with our best interest in mind, though few truly know everything hidden in those endless lines of code.

Suarez shows the dangers of that near-blind acceptance. Knowledge is power. In Daemon, this tenant is taken to the extreme, with an artificial intelligence holding all the cards. It’s a future we might already be facing but don’t realize yet. 

The oldest book on the list, Lucifer’s Hammer seems to be an end-of-the-world tale. And it is to a degree: the world is forever altered after a comet enters the earth’s atmosphere and breaks apart, the huge pieces slamming into the West Coast.

It’s the aftermath, though, where things get interesting. How do people survive? How much of their humanity survives with them? This is the story Niven and Pournelle tell, with a level of realism that echoes people’s attitudes and actions witnessed during the COVID pandemic.

With a clash between rival forces leading to a showdown that dictates the survivors’ future, Lucifer’s Hammer has continued to resonate with me years after reading it.