Here is a list of six science fiction stories that were amazingly close to predicting the world that we live in today. One, written in the 1960's even mentions a president named "Obami", which is pretty amazing in itself. Jules Verne and HG Wells are of course, two well-known authors whose novels came very close to predicting our modern day world; but there are several others on this list that also have been very accurate. I can kind of see how they might guess the big things, like atomic bombs; but how they knew that we would have kids shooting each other is schools is flat amazing ! I would never have guessed that could be possible from the way kids were when I was going to school. Smoking a cigarette in the back of the school grounds was probably about as bad as it got back in the 50's. http://www.thedailysheeple.com/five-prophetic-sci-fi-novels-that-predicted-our-strange-future_042015
I know! It's creepy isn't it? I had read a few of these long ago, and forgotten the gist of them. I would add "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury, to the mix. In the book, there was censorship of the language, because it made people "feel bad," and the citizens had a pill for every occasion.
Wells was a great observer of human life and one of my favourite novels is his Tono Bungay, which is a brilliant satire on the power of advertising. Another British writer who gave advertisers the beating they deserve was Anthony Trollope in one of his lesser-known works, The Struggles of Brown, Jones and Robinson. Of course, neither of these works could be classified as Science Fiction, but they were prescient in foreseeing the power that advertising holds over us.
For example: Arthur C. Clarke predicted the use of communication satellites in geosynchronous orbit. In his honor this orbit is also known as the "Clarke Belt". Many things were predicted by science fiction, but I believe most of this should not be taken too seriously. Much as psychics make hundreds of predictions that are totally wrong, but we only remember the handful they got right, by chance. So also SF writers predicted light sabers, microscopic robots and thousands of other goodies without backing up the idea with known science. But some authors, like Arthur C. Clarke, used known laws of physics to make logical deductions. They did not only write to entertain, they also educated our minds and inspired generations of engineers and inventors. These are the largely unsung SF heroes who deserve our praise. Perhaps Isaac Asimov should top this list of brilliant SF educators?
I have no penchant for these stories but my husband is a die hard. He used to buy pocket books that were so expensive during the pre-internet years. But now he just browse the net for some good readings. He said that science fiction is not just stories, they inspire people to do their part in creating a better future for us.
Heh, I find it funny how people can sometimes predict the future, and how it's mostly people who don't claim to be psychics; only folks who do it for fun. Expect many people to read Jules Verne's stories in the future and be creeped out that many of the events written by him will happen just because he got a few things right.