Customer Reviews

2020 Vision

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In his preface to "2020 Vision", Jerry Pournelle explains the driving force behind this collection of short stories. He wanted a focus on realism. It was 1970; he asked the authors to envision life in 2020 as it might actually happen, without invading aliens, parallel universes, or other such far out contrivances. Of course, by doing so he might seem to clamp down on the greatest potential of science fiction, originality. But a sufficiently skilled author should be able to bend reality and our heads while staying with the bounds of the possible. Most of these don't, however.

Without any doubt, the top story here is Dian Girad's "Eat, Drink, and be Merry". By 2020 we've grown so health conscious that dieting and exercise routines are enforced by law, and computers monitor the citizens nonstop for signs of unhealthiness. Against this tyranny, one woman wages a humorous battle and achieves a small victory. (Just please ignore Pournelle's hilariously sexist introduction.) The other flagship story in this collection is Norman Spinrad's "A Thing of Beauty", a melancholy look at a future where Japanese industrial giants dominate the world and loot the national treasures of other cultures, even America.

Dragging down the collection are the contributions of Harlan Ellison and Poul Anderson, boring Orwell ripoffs with nothing new to say. Dave McDaniel's "Prognosis: Terminal" doesn't seem to have much to say either. Ben Bova's "Build me a Mountain", a tale about the politics of space exploration, was at elast prophetic in predicting the collapse of support for exploring the planets, though it lacks excitement. Rounding out the collection is Larry Niven's mediocre speculation on anarchy, "Cloak of anarchy", and A.E. Van Vogt's "Future Perfect", where new technology allows the world government to police male sexuality. He doesn't quite have the guts to push the idea as far as it should go, however.