Can novelists predict the future? Here’s a column I wrote for “Crime Reads” magazine.
Novelists are not prophets or psychics, clairvoyants or descendants of Nostradamus.
They are not supposed to be, at least.
But over the years, some have seemed pretty close.
Dean Koontz once wrote a thriller called, The Eyes of Darkness, which predicted a global pandemic started by a lethal virus called the “Wuhan-400,” originating in Wuhan, China.
True, in the original edition published in 1981, the virus was produced in the Soviet Union and it was called the “Gorki-400.” In 1989, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Koontz put out a new edition in which he changed the villain to the Communist Chinese government.
Plenty of naysayers say Koontz didn’t get it exactly right—but….
[To read my full article, please click here.]
The post Can novelists predict the future? Here’s a column I wrote for “Crime Reads” magazine. appeared first on Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog.
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If an author is writing fiction with a message (e.g., as a warning, like Huxley and Orwell) instead of just for entertainment, it's logical to research history and current events before writing, so that your fictional future is credible. Especially if you are writing about the near future, not hundreds of years from now. That greatly increases the odds that life will imitate art and your fiction will seem prophetic. The Biblical test for prophets claiming to speak for God required a 100% accuracy score (or die). Writers of fiction don't have to hit that high a mark to impress people. It is eerie when you see real events that are similar to your fictional creations.
