It's 2050. Somehow we haven't joined the dinosaurs in extinction, succumbed to the Secret Society of Super Villains, or been raptured up to the clouds. And the robots are friendly, not evil. Futurologist and environmentalist Sir Jonathan Porritt's The World We Made: Alex McKay's Story from 2050, published this week by Phaidon, imagines in full color what the future will look like if humanity gets with the eco program. Absent here is the dire forecasting of Orwell's 1984 or the mystical monolith of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Porritt presents a future that's rosy without being far–fetched, where every house is water–efficient and we're all BFFs with our robots. The book is framed as the parting gift of a retiring history professor, Alex McKay, telling his students "how we got the world back from the brink of collapse to where we are now in 2050." "It's definitely not science fiction," Porritt tells Co.Design. "Everything in this book is either already in existence or in development today, or has been flagged up by a designer as a possibility for the near future." Porritt would know––he founded Forum for the Future and acts as a sustainability adviser for the Prince of Wales and companies like Nike and PepsiCo. He spent years on this book working with teams of designers, from urban planners to architects to genetic engineers, and the results are astounding.Read Full Story Continue reading at 'Fast Company'
[ Fast Company | 2013-10-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Thu, 04/08/2011 - 14:30 Orbit commissioning editor Bella Pagan will be joining Tor, Pan Macmillan's science fiction and fantasy imprint, as a senior commissioning editor on 1st November. Pagan will report to Pan Macmillan fiction publisher... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-08-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Wed, 06/07/2011 - 09:19 The third edition of the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction is to be released online later this year by ESF Ltd, a new company set up by the contributors to the book, in association with Orion imprint Victor Gollancz. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-07-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Bookseller Staff Publication Date: Thu, 28/04/2011 - 07:32 Lauren Beukes's Zoo City has been honoured with the Arthur C Clarke Award for science fiction novel of the year, being tipped to bring "a whole new readership" to the genre. Zoo City's publisher Angry Robot Books has also... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-04-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Wed, 20/04/2011 - 09:45 The BBC is broadcasting an item on The Culture Show about science fiction next month, in the wake of a row about the broadcasters approach to genre fiction. read more Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-04-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Graeme Neill Publication Date: Mon, 18/04/2011 - 09:19 Authors including Iain M Banks and Michael Moorcock have written to the BBC's director general Mark Thompson, attacking the treatment of genre fiction in its recent World Book Night coverage. In total 85 authors, across the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-04-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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