Jack of Harts

One of the “looking back” moments in the Jack of Harts universe is what I call the Second Great Depression. It was (will be) a global economic collapse bad enough to compare to the First Great Depression of the 1930s, and basically created the new world that Jack grew up in a couple centuries later. I’ve never really talked about the current crazy of this year in real life, because I obviously didn’t know it would happen. 😉

It is one of the interesting bits about writing futuristic fiction. Star Trek’s communicators are old tech by our modern standards. Star Trek The Next Generation’s PADDs are now used by everyone as we walk down the sidewalks. I grew up reading old sci-fi written between 30 and 50 years before, so the idea that real life quickly outpaces science fiction is one I’m rather well used to. Even those of us who look forward and imagine most often fail to imagine just how quickly the future will arrive.

Not that it ever really shows up the way we expect it. Real life is often better than we think it will be, or at least sufficiently different as to sidestep the problems we foresaw. Granted, there are places where we fall further than expected as well. The Great Depression and the World Wars are examples of that. But we’ve also built things so much better than many of us ever expected. The future is always in motion and hard to predict. But we will continue to imagine it, and see where life takes us as we do so…