“It's difficult,” declared Harry Turtledove in 2001, in his Introduction to The best alternative history stories of the 20th century, “writing about the effects of technology before there is much to write about.” Two decades later, futurism remains as difficult a task as ever, and it is precisely this problem of imagining what comes next that animates the body of stories in 21 Futures: Tales from the Time Chaina new science fiction anthology coming out this month.
These are not, however, your grandfather's tales of tomorrow. Konsensus Network, the publishers behind the project, have been presenting it as a kind of urgent, decidedly proto-text, the “first” when it comes to story collections specifically geared toward bitcoin. And with twenty-one authors offering twenty-one different visions of a future characterized by the flourishing of decentralized digital currencies, editors Philip Charter and Niko Laamanen appear to have achieved just that.
It should be noted at the outset that its mission is only indirectly evangelical, an editorial decision that serious readers will appreciate. In the case of 21 futures, the very real potential for brain-rotting agitprop proliferation has been completely avoided. What we have, instead, is the product of a principled approach to artistic curation: a crop of stories both delightfully immersive and intellectually stimulating, each arguing in its own way with the tantalizing question of “What?” Yeah?” After all, as Charter points out in his own Introduction, “to unite interest in bitcoin, we must be better at telling its stories.”
which is not exactly say: “Listen, maxis!” Because, although some of the stories (indeed, some of the best) in this collection establish only a superficial relationship with bitcoin, the truth of the matter may simply be that a clever attraction policy, rather than naive promotion, will prove to be the most effective path to widespread bitcoin adoption.
That path, the one that advances towards some of the more sunny perspectives granted by the authors of this collection – risks being forged on the anvil of our media. And so the publication of 21 futures, not to mention any of the countless books that are sure to take root in the shadow it casts, is truly not to be missed. It marks the first serious effort by a concentration of artists to outline a vision of financial freedom. Since poet Ezra Pound's gravely misguided attempt to assimilate banking data into The songs Have the worlds of money and literature collided so intentionally and, for once, so effectively?
Everyone can see that bitcoin and its followers continue to be the subject of much public ridicule. That 21 futures What it promises to do for bitcoin is not simply to imagine its ancestry (a future, say, in which the name “Satoshi Nakamoto” resonates as reverently as it does enigmatically) but also to be one of the vehicles moving toward that future. As a wide range of fascinating and thought-provoking stories that any reader (sci-fi fan or not) is sure to enjoy, 21 futures It's a tangible and self-justifying step into the much broader and increasingly influential worlds of television, film and gaming. From court proceedings and Android memoirs to international shenanigans and artificial intelligence cosmology; traversing a wide range of voices, some of them experimental, others comfortably incorporated into the mainstream, all of them rejecting the haze of ambiguity; as a literary enterprise, in short, that represents something of meaning in this world, without the need to make a club of that meaning, in addition to being a compilation of science fiction shorts, 21 futures It's also simply the best kind of manifesto.
And saying that a handful of pieces punch above their weight does little to convey the overall excellence exhibited by the majority of the stories. However, whether it's Decent Money's fragmented story “Hello World” or the more conventional (but no less exciting) sci-fi “Behemoth,” some of the collection's strongest contributions truly prove worthy of the great established with whom they are. clearly in the conversation. From Robert Louis Stevenson through Philip K. Dick to the present, this is, of course, a conversation that can't help but be stimulated by others to come. And if only to find out what it's really like right now, here at ground zero, before the first best-selling novel about bitcoin hits shelves, before the first blockbuster about bitcoin opens at your local movie theater, you'll want to read this. book.
This is a guest post by Eric Bies. The opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of btc Inc or bitcoin Magazine.
