2047 Short Stories From Our Common Future

In 1987, the United Nations created a vision for our common future: one Earth, where we could all live together without damaging the planet for future generations. In this short-fiction anthology from 2017, ten authors look another thirty years into the future, giving their perspectives regarding how we might-or might not-adapt to the changes around us in the year 2047. As citizens on this blue planet of ours, we are currently experiencing great changes when it comes to global warming, pollution, and toxic substances that end up in our food and our drinking water. In addition, flora and fauna are disappearing from the places where we played when we were children, and natural resources are being depleted around the world. Life as we know it is changing. Some say these changes are happening faster than ever, which means we need to adapt faster too. So are we? Read more on the book's webpage http: //2047ourcommonfuture.com

A superpower of two billion people, a dozen new nations from Kerela to the Himalayas, artificial intelligences, climate-change induced drought, water wars, strange new genders, genetically improved children that age at half the rate of baseline humanity, and a population where males outnumber females four to one. This is India in 2047, one hundred years after its birth. In the new nation of Bharat, in the face of the failure of the monsoon, nine lives are swept together — a gangster, a cop, his wife, a politician, a stand-up comic, a set designer, a journalist, a scientist, and a dropout — to decide the future of Mother India. River of Gods teems with the life of a country choked with peoples and cultures — one and a half billion people, twelve semi-independent nations, nine million gods. A war is fought, a love is betrayed, a mystery from a different world decoded, as the great river Ganges flows on. Praise for River of Gods: “[A] bold, brave look at India on the eve of its centennial, 41 years from now...McDonald takes his readers from India's darkest depths to its most opulent heights, from rioting mobs and the devastated poor to high-level politicians and lavish parties. He handles his complex plot with flair and confidence and deftly shows how technological advances and social changes have subtly changed lives. RIVER OF GODS is a major achievement from a writer who is becoming one of the best sf novelists of our time.” —Washington Post “[P]erhaps his most accomplished novel to date... reminiscent of William Gibson in full-throttle cultural-immersion mode, packed with technical jargon, religious and sociological observation and allusions to art both high and low... RIVER OF GODS amply rewards careful consideration and more than delivers its share of straight-ahead entertainment. Already a multiple-award nominee following its British publication, McDonald's latest ranks as one of the best science fiction novels published in the United States this year.” —San Francisco Chronicle “A staggering achievement, brilliantly imagined and endlessly surprising ... A brave, brilliant and wonderful novel.” —Christopher Priest, The Guardian

From Lionel Shriver, the acclaimed author of the National Book Award finalist So Much for That and the international bestseller We Need to Talk About Kevin, comes a striking new novel about family, money, and global economic crisis. The year is 2029, and nothing is as it should be. The very essence of American life, the dollar, is under attack. In a coordinated move by the rest of the world’s governments, the dollar loses all its value. The American President declares that the States will default on all its loans--prices skyrocket, currency becomes essentially worthless, and we watch one family struggle to survive through it all. The Mandibles can count on their inheritance no longer, and each member must come to terms with this in their own way-from the elegant ex-pat author Nollie, in her middle age, returning to the U.S. from Paris after many years abroad, to her precocious teenage nephew Willing, who is the only one to actually understand the crisis, to the brilliant Georgetown economics professor Lowell, who watches his whole vision of the world disintegrate before his eyes. As ever, in her new novel, Shriver draws larger than life characters who illuminate this complicated, ever-changing world. One of our sharpest observers of human nature, Shriver challenges us to think long and hard about the society we live in and what, ultimately, we hold most dear.

Cyberabad Days returns to the India of 2047 as featured in Ian McDonald's acclaimed novel River of Gods. A new, muscular superpower of two billion people in an age of new nations, artificial intelligences, climate-change induced drought, water wars, strange new genders, genetically improved children that age at half the rate of baseline humanity, and a population where males outnumber females four to one. Cyberabad Days is a cycle of seven stories, three Hugo nominees and one Hugo winner among them, as well as an original thirty-one-thousand-word novella. Welcome back to the fierce, dazzling, thrilling world of River of Gods. Featuring: Sanjeev and Robotwallah (selected for both The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection and Year's Best SF 13): A boy-soldier roboteer from the War of Separation learns that war may be hell, but peace is harder. Kyle meets the River: A young American in Varanasi learns the true meaning of “nation building” in the early days of a new country. The Dust Assassin: In the time of water-wars, the daughter of a powerful water-raja learns that revenge revenge is a slow and subtle art. An Eligible Boy: Love and marriage is never easy when there four men for every women. But it should be easy with an Artificial Intelligence matchmaker. Shouldn’t it? The Little Goddess (Hugo nominee for best novella of 2006): In Kathmandu, a child-goddess discovers what lies on the other side of godhood and what divinty really means. The Djinn’s Wife (Hugo for best novelette and BSFA short-fiction winner of 2007): A minor Delhi celebrity falls in love with an artificial intelligence, but is it a marriage of heaven and hell? Vishnu at the Cat Circus: A genetically improved “Brahmin”child finds himself left behind as he grows through the final generation of humanity. Praise for Cyberabad Days: “The sheer number of ideas and plotlines can sometimes make McDonald's novels seems dense, but the stories here are sharp, focused and witty.” —BBCFocus “McDonald's India engulfs you with an overwhelming, perfumed, stinky embrace. A hugely impressive collection. Seven nifty, witty stories.” —SFX “McDonald excels at conveying, in a gorgeous melange of sensory impressions, an India transformed by AIs, nanotech, robots and cybernetics: the subcontinent is chaotic and lurid, shot through with devotion to eternal Hindu gods and divided by internecine conflict. McDonald gives a refreshing take on the future from a non-western viewpoint.” —The Guardian

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anathem, Reamde, and Cryptonomicon comes an exciting and thought-provoking science fiction epic—a grand story of annihilation and survival spanning five thousand years. What would happen if the world were ending? A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space. But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain . . . Five thousand years later, their progeny—seven distinct races now three billion strong—embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown . . . to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth. A writer of dazzling genius and imaginative vision, Neal Stephenson combines science, philosophy, technology, psychology, and literature in a magnificent work of speculative fiction that offers a portrait of a future that is both extraordinary and eerily recognizable. As he did in Anathem, Cryptonomicon, the Baroque Cycle, and Reamde, Stephenson explores some of our biggest ideas and perplexing challenges in a breathtaking saga that is daring, engrossing, and altogether brilliant.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Now a major motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg. “Enchanting . . . Willy Wonka meets The Matrix.”—USA Today • “As one adventure leads expertly to the next, time simply evaporates.”—Entertainment Weekly A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready? In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the OASIS, a vast virtual world where most of humanity spends their days. When the eccentric creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves behind a series of fiendish puzzles, based on his obsession with the pop culture of decades past. Whoever is first to solve them will inherit his vast fortune—and control of the OASIS itself. Then Wade cracks the first clue. Suddenly he’s beset by rivals who’ll kill to take this prize. The race is on—and the only way to survive is to win. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Entertainment Weekly • San Francisco Chronicle • Village Voice • Chicago Sun-Times • iO9 • The AV Club “Delightful . . . the grown-up’s Harry Potter.”—HuffPost “An addictive read . . . part intergalactic scavenger hunt, part romance, and all heart.”—CNN “A most excellent ride . . . Cline stuffs his novel with a cornucopia of pop culture, as if to wink to the reader.”—Boston Globe “Ridiculously fun and large-hearted . . . Cline is that rare writer who can translate his own dorky enthusiasms into prose that’s both hilarious and compassionate.”—NPR “[A] fantastic page-turner . . . starts out like a simple bit of fun and winds up feeling like a rich and plausible picture of future friendships in a world not too distant from our own.”—iO9

“Breathtaking . . . brilliantly conducted . . . Far-future philosophic space opera and near-future eco-thriller combine effectively.”—Locus It is the year 2047, and nuclear engineer Michael Poole is mourning the death of his beloved wife and doubting his own sanity. But he must stave off a looming catastrophe: vast reservoirs of toxic gases lie beneath the melting poles, threatening to contaminate the atmosphere and destroy all life on Earth. Though born five hundred thousand years after the death of Michael Poole, Alia knows him intimately. Every person in Alia’s world is entrusted with Witnessing one life from the past by means of a technology able to traverse time. Alia’s subject is Michael Poole. Chosen to become a Transcendent, a member of the group mind that is shepherding humanity toward an evolutionary apotheosis, Alia discovers a dark side to the Transcendent’s plans. Somehow, Michael holds the fate of the future in his hands, and to save that future, Alia must undertake a desperate journey into the past. “Stunning . . . engaging . . . a contrasting mix of Baxter’s customary skill at presenting a very realnear future, and his talent for high-level hardscience fiction.”—Starburst