Future Media

Overview

Lauded authors and theorists contemplate the communications of tomorrow

This startling exploration of the mass media age uniquely combines complex nonfiction and prescient fiction from the best and brightest visionaries of the future. Essay contributors include Marshall McLuhan, who posited that the medium is the message; Cory Doctorow and his re-visioning of intellectual property in the digital age; and Nicolas Carr, whose cautionary warnings include that Google is making us stupid. The thought-provoking short stories are authored by science fiction luminaries including James Tiptree Jr., whose pseudonymous cyperpunk preceded all of her peers; Joe Haldeman and his wars where humans fight through cloning and time travel; and Norman Spinrad, who has pitted the media against an immortality conspiracy. Offering a blend of predictions for the course of communications, Future Media entertains while it informs and challenges readers to consider the implications for a society dealing with networks that are alternately personal, public, pervasive, and powerful.

Reviews

"Often deep, occasionally dense, and always thought-provoking, these works will appeal to both academics and lay readers." —Publishers Weekly

"I recommend [Future Media] for anyone who has a smartphone, watches television, or uses the Internet." —www.PopMatters.com (October 14, 2011)

"Future Media is a thought-provoking, worthwhile read. . . . There was a beautiful glimmer in the near distance that grew brighter, more important and insistent, with every page I turned." —Seattle Post-Intelligencer (July 30, 2011)

"Rick Wilber has produced one of the most impressive anthologies of recent times. Indeed along with the wonderful Kafkaesque, it has been quite a year for superb anthologies from Tachyon Publications." —www.SFSite.com

Author Biography

Rick Wilber is a college journalism professor and the author of several college textbooks, including Magazine Feature Writing, Modern Media Writing, and The Writer’s Handbook for Editing and Revision. He has published more than 50 science fiction short stories that have appeared in several anthologies and magazines, including Analog, Asimov’s SF, and Fantasy & Science Fiction. He lives in Tampa, Florida.