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.
