Futuristic Fiction

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

“The world is too much with us,” William Wordsworth warned, and it's true: we do get caught up in the day-to-day affairs of our everyday lives. As a result, we often miss the mystery and beauty of the natural world—and of the inner worlds of ourselves and others.

 

It is to escape the tedium of everydayness that men and women travel, devote themselves to arts or crafts, learn to play musical instruments, attend movies or sports events, concerts or plays, and, of course, read.

Reading takes us out of ourselves; sometimes, it also takes us out of this world, to times past or future, to strange worlds or other dimensions, or even, in the case of Dante's Inferno, to hell itself (not that such a destination is recommended, ordinarily.)

But what happens when the worlds of poetry, fiction, and drama themselves become too familiar to provide the escape from everydayness we crave? When the tropes and themes of genre literature themselves become too commonplace, they cannot alleviate the boredom of what The Mothers of Invention called our “dull, gray” existence.

Futurology, the study (or, perhaps, speculation about) of possible future situations, events, and states of existence based upon extrapolations from current ones, often rekindles the imagination. The future may not be exactly as futurologists envision it, but, even if it is not, their conjectures provide fresh visions of the way things could be, and that's all a writer of popular literature, regardless of genre, needs to rekindle his or her own imagination.

With thriller and horror fiction genres in mind, let's consider some of the possibilities that futurologists' ideas might suggest in the way of such elements of fiction as characters, settings, plots, motives, and conflicts.

There are astonishing technological marvels on the horizon, futurologists predict, including eye-controlled technology, paper diagnostics, designer antibiotics, ingestible robots, smart clothing, photonics in space, volcanic mining, a spintronics revolution, carbon-breathing batteries, super antivirals, diamond batteries, optogenetics, nano feasibility, an unhackable quantum Internet, biometric materials, the next generation of artificial intelligence, 3D printing in every home, designer molecules, a fully immersible, computer interface, and a self-sufficient ecosystem.

Whew! If that list doesn't suggest some fresh characters, settings, plots, motives, and conflicts that can be, as Stephen King defines horror, (a) disgusting, (b) horrific, or (c) terrifying, maybe there's no future for horror (or for the unimaginative aspiring horror writer, at least).

The first step in using the futuristic fiction approach is to research the type of technology in which you're interested as a writer. Start by gaining an overview of the technology. Then, learn whatever more detailed material you need to make your story accurate and believable. (Hint: Videos, such as those available on YouTube, are often quite sound academically and provide a moving, audio-visual rather than a static, learning approach, which some might prefer to reading.)

For example, suppose you're interested in eye-controlled technology. You might make a list of questions to research:

• How does it work?
• What uses does it have? (How has it been used? How else might it be used? In other words, what are its applications?)
• What benefits does it provide?
• What are its disadvantages?

As other relevant questions present themselves, research them as well.

How does it work?

Eye tracking records our point of gaze and our eye movements in relation to the environment and is typically based on the optical tracking of corneal reflections, known as pupil center corneal reflection (PCCR).

Eye-tracking technology can installed in personal computers, peripheral devices, or eyeglasses.

What uses does it have? (How has it been used? How else might it be used? In other words, what are its applications?)

There’s a chance that soon eye tracking will be a standard feature of a new generation of smartphones, laptops and desktop monitors setting the stage for a huge reëvaluation of the way we communicate with devices—or how they communicate with us.

“In the past year eye tracking technology moved from being a promising technology to being adopted in commercial products in a wide array of consumer segments simultaneously,” Werner says.

. . . VR headset companies are making large investments in eye tracking technology.

. . . eye tracking might make it a whole lot easier for gamers to interact with the gaming environment.

“There is an increasing interest in using eye tracking to help diagnose — and potentially treat –neurological disorders,” says Bryn Farnsworth, science editor at biometric research company iMotions.

With eye tracking technology, online advertisers will be able to measure exactly how many actual human eyes actually view their ads when they appear on the page.

What benefits does it provide?

“Eye tracking sensors provide two main benefits,” says Oscar Werner, vice president of the eye tracking company Tobii Tech. “First, it makes a device aware of what the user is interested in at any given point in time. And second, it provides an additional way to interact with content, without taking anything else away. That means it increases the communication bandwidth between the user and the device.”

What are its disadvantages?

1. The equipment is expensive.
2. Some users can't work with the equipment (for example if they wear contact lenses or have long eye lashes).
3. Calibrating the equipment takes time; [as a result] this problem may . . . cause the user to deviate from using the device.

Without developing a detailed synopsis, we can suggest some possibilities simply by breaking ideas into the three parts of any story: the beginning, the middle, and the end:

Eye-controlled Technology

1. Beginning: An art gallery stages an exhibition for an up-and-coming artist of the avant-garde.
2. Middle: An explosive device installed in the wall, behind one of the artist's paintings explodes.
3. End (Terrifying and Gross-out Elements): Sixteen people are killed, including the artist, as terrorists prove the efficacy of their latest innovation: eye-tracking technology that can be used as a trigger to detonate an explosive device. (A good title for such a story might be “The Tenth Gaze,” because the software used to detonate the bomb triggered its explosion in accordance with the tenth time someone gazed at a specific point on a particular painting.)

Note: Can eye-controlled technology be used to active an explosive device? I don't know, but it doesn't matter, because, in fiction, it can.

Next-generation Artificial Intelligence

1. Beginning: A next-generation robot is activated as it exits the assembly line.
2. Middle: Its programmed role as a “helpmate” is initiated.
3. End: Unhappy with its assigned role, the robot “commits suicide.” (A good title for such a story might be “Access Denied,” since the robot, in self-destructing, denies access to itself to a buyer.) In an alternate ending, the robot could allow itself to be purchased and then kill its owner, claiming the owner's residence (and perhaps his or her family) as its own.