‘Prediction or Influence?’, Books of the Past That Forecast the Future

Printer Inks created a compelling infographic illustrating futuristic ideas in books of the past that came true, as well as the time difference between each book’s publication and the time in which the idea became fact.

Many writers of the past have predicted the facts of our present society with a level of detail that seems impossibly accurate. Some of them were even derided in their times for what were called outlandish and unbelievable fictions. Yet their imaginations were in reality painting portraits that would eventually be mirrored by history books a century later. Which seems to beg the question, Where does inspiration come from?

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, for example, predicted in 1735 that Mars had two moons. It wasn’t until 142 years later (1877) that Mars’ two moons were discovered. John Brunner‘s Hugo Award-winningStand on Zanzibar is the clear front-runner among the group of books with eight predictions, including the decriminalization of marijuana, on-demand television shows, and the European Union.


They say life is stranger than fiction. But, in fact, it is astonishing how often life is almost exactly the same as fiction. Whether it is a matter of books influencing inventors, simple coincidence, or some authors having supernatural abilities to foresee the future; the number of books that have managed to paint hauntingly accurate pictures of technologies that didn't arrive until decades after their publication is uncanny. So while statisticians feel comfortable claiming that if you have enough monkeys tapping away at typewriters for enough years, one will eventually write Hamlet, it is nonetheless astounding that writers like H.G. Wells and Jules Verne were able to spell out so many ‘fictions’ that eventually became realities.

But they weren't the only ones. Many writers of the past have predicted the facts of our present society with a level of detail that seems impossibly accurate. Some of them were even derided in their times for what were called outlandish and unbelievable fictions. Yet their imaginations were in reality painting portraits that would eventually be mirrored by history books a century later. Which seems to beg the question, Where does inspiration come from? So to decide for yourself whether these writers were seers or just plain lucky, explore our History of Books that Predicted the Future.