The past future

[YankeyMCC]

A couple of fun sites I learned of via James Patrick Kelly's "On the Net" column in the Jan 2010 Asimov's.

"It wasn't that long ago that we had a future. I mean, we have one now; the world isn't going to crash into the Sun or anything like that. What I mean is that we had a future that we could clearly imagine. The future wasn't tomorrow, next week, next year, or next century. It was a place with a form, a structure, a style. True, we didn't know exactly what the future would be like, but we knew that it had to be one of a few alternatives; some good, some very bad. The future was a world with a distinct architecture. It had its own way of speaking. It had its own technology. It was for all intents and purposes a different land where people dressed differently, talked differently, ate differently, and even thought differently. It was where scientists were wizards, where machines were magically effective and efficient, where tyrants were at least romantically evil rather than banal, and where the heavens were fairyland where dreams could literally come true."

http://davidszondy.com/future/futurepast.htm

"Explore the inventions and ideas of science fiction writers at Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) - over 1,825 are available. Use the Timeline of Science Fiction Invention or the alphabetic Glossary of Science Fiction Technology to see them all, look for the category that interests you, or browse by favorite author / book. Browse more than 2,525 Science Fiction in the News and Beyond Technovelgy articles. "

http://technovelgy.com/