How many of these things did you recognise instantly? Does this disturb you?

1. The story starts when the Earth is demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass. It's all infinitely improbable.
   
   • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
2. Monoliths make early humans clever. Then one shows up on the moon, and there's a big light show.
   
   • 2001: A Space Odyssey
3. Children believe they are engaging in a computer simulation, but are really committing genocide.
   
   • Ender's Game
4. Humans stop reading books and only watch interactive electronic media on their flatscreen TVs.
   
   • Fahrenheit 451
5. A man who has witnessed what he considers a war crime becomes 'unstuck in time' and lives his life completely out of order.
   
   • Slaughterhouse Five
6. People living under the Nazi regime in North America discover the existence of parallel worlds.
   
   • The Man in the High Castle
7. A man has a precognitive flash while shaking the hand of a politician and decides to kill him.
   
   • The Dead Zone
8. Surprisingly civilised survivors from post-apocalyptic Earth time-travel to the 21st Century to try and save the planet. Unsurprisingly, this isn't as easy as it looks.
   
   • Travelers
9. Aliens from another planet disguise themselves as amazingly incompetent humans and move into an attic apartment in Ohio. No one really notices how odd they are because it is Ohio.
   
   • Third Rock from the Sun
10. A loser, a sentient cat, and a conceited hologram walk into a universe….
    
    • Red Dwarf

Are you worried about the growing influence of science fiction on our minds? Go read a historical novel today!

Time to push the reset button.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

07.01.19 Front Page

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