# The (SF) Futures Left Behind **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 1, 2015, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sf-futures-left-behind/708674 "2015-01-01T12:59:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 1
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2015, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sf-futures-left-behind/708674/1 "2015-01-01T12:59:44Z")
Since it’s 2015, which is the year that Marty McFly travels forward to in _Back to the Future II_, it’s gotten me to thinking about all the other SF futures that we’ve caught up with, or have already left behind. The granddaddy of them all is _1984_, of course: when I first read it as a 13 or 14 year old back in 1967 or 1968, 1984 was still a lot further into the future than I could remember into the past. Then we finally got to 1984, and it was just another year. And there’s _2001: A Space Odyssey_ and its sequels (one set in 2010, IIRC), and the general cluster of stuff around 2000, which represented The Future for so long (“it’s 2000; where’s my flying car?”) Another SF touchstone for me has been Joe Haldeman’s _The Forever War_. His Private Mandella is in basic training in, um, 1997. By 2007, he’s a sergeant, and off on his second engagement with the Taurans, which he doesn’t return from until 2024. _Escape from New York_ was also set in 1997. _Escape from L.A._ wasn’t until 2013. 😉 Much of Ray Bradbury’s _The Martian Chronicles_ was set in 2005. I’d exclude stuff like _Jurassic Park_ that were set in what was, at the time, the present or very near future. If I were to write a novel set here on Earth as it gets afflicted with a devastating Ebola-like plague in the year 2018, I could just as well be talking about next week. So what are your favorite futures that we’ve already left behind, or are catching up with? --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sf-futures-left-behind/708674)._