How leading science fiction authors are shaping your future

Science fiction is not just a literary genre; it is a method for contemplating possible futures, argues author Eileen Gunn in “How America’s Leading Science Fiction Writers Are Shaping Your Future,” a feature article in the May 2014 issue of Smithsonian Magazine.

The article explores a number of ways that authors, technologists and academics are using science fiction to drive and direct the development of emerging technology and scientific knowledge. One such effort featured in the article is Arizona State University’s Project Hieroglyph, founded by best-selling science fiction author Neal Stephenson and headquartered at ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination.

Ed Finn, director of the center and assistant professor in the School of Arts, Media and Engineering and the Department of English, says that Project Hieroglyph encourages writers and researchers to “step out of their comfort zone” and collaborate on fact-based, optimistic visions of the future.

Project Hieroglyph’s first anthology, "Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future," will be published in September 2014 by HarperCollins. The anthology features work from 17 science fiction authors who worked with scientists, engineers, artists and other researchers to build creative, ambitious visions of the near-future. According to Finn, the book will inspire readers to place themselves into futures shaped by radical technological transformations.

Stephenson’s hope is that the optimistic, achievable visions of the future created by Project Hieroglyph will inspire young scientists and engineers to offer tangible solutions to major global challenges.

The Smithsonian article features a number of top science fiction writers and thinkers alongside Finn and Stephenson, including Ursula K. Le Guin, Cory Doctorow, Ted Chiang, Samuel R. Delaney, William Gibson and Kim Stanley Robinson, astrophysicist Jordin Kare and MIT Media Lab instructors Sophia Brueckner and Dan Novy. Visit Smithsonian Magazine to read the full article and learn more about how science fiction is shaping the future.