Synopses & Reviews
This startling exploration of the mass-media age uniquely combines complex nonfiction and prescient fiction from the best and brightest visionaries of the future.
Nonfiction contributors include Marshall McLuhan, who posited that the medium is the message; Cory Doctorow and his revisioning of intellectual property in the digital age; and Nicolas Carr, whose cautionary warning is that Google is (and will continue to be) making us stupid.
Fiction comes from science-fiction standouts, including James Tiptree, Jr., whose pseudonymous cyberpunk preceded all her peers; Joe Haldeman, whose wars require humans to battle via cloning and time travel; and Norman Spinrad, who has pitted the media against an immortality conspiracy.
In offering startling predictions of what the mass media will be like in years to come, Future Media not only entertains while it informs but also challenges its readers, from teachers to students to science-fiction fans, to consider the implications for society of a mass media that is at once personal, public, pervasive, and powerful.
Review
"Often deep, occasionally dense, and always thought-provoking, these works will appeal to both academics and lay readers." Publishers Weekly
Review
"I recommend [Future Media] for anyone who has a smartphone, watches television, or uses the Internet." www.PopMatters.com (October 14, 2011)
Review
"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)
Review
"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
Review
""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 "
Often deep, occasionally dense, and always thought-provoking, these works will appeal to both academics and lay readers.”
Publishers Weekly
Recommended for anyone who has a smartphone, watches TV, or uses the Internet.”
Pop Matters
Future Media is a thought-provoking, worthwhile read that may cause similar feelings to reading Platos Allegory of the Cave.... [T]here 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)
A great book upon which to base a university lecture.”
Interzone
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.”
SF Site
About the Author
Rick Wilber is a college journalism professor who heads the magazine major at the University of South Florida. He is the author of several college textbooks, including Magazine Feature Writing (St. Martins Press), The Writers Handbook for Editing and Revision (McGraw-Hill), and Modern Media Writing (Cengage). He has published more than fifty science-fiction short stories appearing in such anthologies and magazines as Analog, Asimovs, and Fantasy and Science Fiction.