What's Next for Science Fiction?

[julieandrews]

I've been thinking about this question lately. I ran across this piece discussing that very thing. I didn't actually find anything in here to comment on.. a lack of content I disagreed with. But it's worth a read.

The Time Machine: How sci-fi calculates the future from The Harvard Independent, by Sam Jack.

What next for science fiction? Science fiction, more than any other literary genre, cannot survive without asking itself that question. Science fiction as we think of it today began with Jules Verne in the 1860s (with Journey to the Center of Earth) and was consummated around the turn of the century by H.G. Wells with a remarkable series of novels that each spawned sub-genres unto themselves. Many of Wells’s novels also came to seem prophetic, some even within his own lifetime; The War in the Air, written a scant five years after the first powered airplane flights, predicted a world war with Germany and Japan as the aggressors that would be largely decided by air power.
Read the rest

Now that I think of it, I do have a comment. I only recently heard of this 'singularity' concept, which is apparently credited to Vernor Vinge. Can anyone recommend a good non-Wikipedia essay or discussion of the topic and/or a good original-ish source about it? Any must-reads out there?

And I'm sure I'll have more to say on the What Next thing in posts to come.