In ‘fiction becoming reality [but only in another fiction]’, I just saw a Dr. Who episode (the Shakespeare one), where for reasons I won’t go into, a plausible-sounding magic chant needed to be created (quickly). Stuck for the last word to rhyme with ‘-us’, Martha comes up with “expelliarmus”.
In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare has Mercutio in his rambling Queen Mab speech refer to a small chariot pulled by tiny atomies, I have always wanted to believe it was a hint of things to come with atomic power.
I have to revive this thread, because I was just cleaning, and came across another, unexpected example.
From the Jules Verne book Yesterday and Tomorrow :
(p. 112 in the Ace edition. Trans. I. O. Evans)
Jules Verne anticipates the Energizer Bunny!
Except that it’s a true story, he claimed. So it’s not really fiction. And before there was an energizer bunny with a drum, there was a Duracell bunny with a drum. (I wonder how many people today realize that the Energizer commercial started as a direct response to a competitor’s ad?)