I’m reading Blind Lake by Robert Charles Wilson, it was published in 2003 but set in the near future, and I’m mind blown by the anachronisms. How little did we see smartphones coming? I feel like 2003 is the modern times because I was 23 then, and yet from the book’s perspective some things feel like 50 years old.
There’s a journalist character who is described as carrying a lapel “imager” which I think means it can take pictures or video. And hanging from her glasses a tiny microphone for note taking. Another character is watching the screen of his “pocket server”, which I have no idea what it may be, sounds like a smartphone without the phone, or the smart, and another character asks him if “that thing can record video”. Characters talk about “the downloads” as what we would call streaming, though I guess in that case is more analogous to TiVo, but it’s the house’s computer which saves them, and that would be the advanced aspect. Characters do have cellphones, but they only work as phones.
On the other hand, the book does seem to be anticipating neural network AI nicely. It’s always the mundane things that authors stumble with, it seems.
So, what are you folks favorite silly anachronisms from books from the last 23 years?
by Brad_Brace