A combination of Snow Crash and Idiocracy
Might as well throw some Terminator and ‘The Machine Stops’ in there.
V for Vendetta
I do believe that a lot of aspects of The Ministry for the Future by K.S. Robinson have chances of becoming true.
The deadly heatwave in south Asia, governments going rogue and playing with geo engineering on their own, climate refugee camps and the general sense of too little too late.
But the book is fairly optimistic, so hopefully, people of the world getting together and accepting a new paradigm will come to be true.
1984
The Water Knife by Paolo Baccigalupi is pretty on the nose for the near future of the southern US
It thought that Vegas was an abomination, a testament to the vanity of mankind but that book made me understand that Phoenix has twice as many people, is bigger though sure, is a little wetter on average and should hold that title.
How is this one of the cheapest cities to live in in the US? Why are we moving the micro chip industry there?
Been reading Corey Doctorow lately and catch myself thinking, “Aw c’mon! That’s not how it works!” And then remember, he’s writing about the near future.
As an American I’d absolutely say Idiocracy, but that’s just my little corner of humanity.
Lots of good responses in this thread so far, but I keep thinking of the newest Gibson trilogy with regards to “the jackpot” where the majority of the population dies from a series of “not quite the big one” pandemics and climate issues and society is taken over by the kleptocracy. I love Gibson’s books, but I wish he would stop accurately predicting our demise.
Dune.
Not the cool parts, the Butlerian Jihad.
I’d have gone with WH40Ks war with the men of iron but there’s absolutely no chance we reach golden age of technology levels before we fuck ourselves.
I’ve gotta go with Mad Max here. Between the words oil obsession, rising aggression and dumbing down of society I can’t see it going any other way.
"Lack of respect, wrong attitude, failure to obey authority. The Farm, immediately. - death sentence in Ellison’s book ‘A Boy and His Dog’
A combination of all the worst bits of the worst ones
If we don’t dodge that bullet, Years and Years. Or Neuromancer.
Neuromancer would be an improvement at this point. Gibson underestimated just how bad corporations could get.
Blade Runner
The Road.
