"The near future - let’s peg it 2020 and beyond - is a blank because there is no version of a near future that seems both desirable and plausible," wrote Kevin Kelly in an essay two years ago which recently got recycled in the 10th Annual Year in Ideas.
(or maybe it's because the near future is just not inherently as dramatic as 100 years from now, nor as engaging as the present)
Gary Shteyngart's third novel, Super Sad True Love Story, is set in the near future. Books don't exist any more and people spend all their time on their iPhones.
In an interview on Fresh Air, Shteyngart said that he needed to set his novel in the near future because the present is moving too fast for novelists to fully contemplate.
"We're all living in the future constantly ... because right now things are happening so quickly," he explained.
"We're all living in the future constantly ... because right now things are happening so quickly," he explained.
"Here's the thing with this new technology. I think it's incredibly effective. I just don't think it's made anyone much happier. If anything, we are now always connected but we don't know what we're connected to. It's just an endless stream of information."
