I’ve been thinking a lot lately about sci-fi novels–Isaac Asimov, William Gibson, Neal Stephenson–and the technology that the authors needed to conceive in order to get their books off the ground.

Something about that is very interesting and inspiring to me–the idea of an author prefiguring possible future innovations in their work, generating the germ of an idea that later gets put into the real world… it’s fascinating.

How would the Internet differ if William Gibson hadn’t written Neuromancer? What does the near-constant theme of humanity being eradicated by computers say about how the authors saw the  rise of technology? Where does fiction end and actual, real futurology begin in work like that?

I’m reading a lot right now, and as I finish books I’ll try to write a few words on here about them while the thoughts are still fresh.