How the future began

I think some people (adults) might quite like to peak behind the curtain and find out how a book such as The Children’s Book of the Future came into being. Well, here you go.

The idea for the book came about after a long lunch at a seafood restaurant called Sheekey’s in London’s theatreland. Lavie was munching his way through a tower of seafood. I forget what I was eating, but I was definitely drinking white wine. The book fell out of our conversation and within about a week we had a proposal. From memory, we got a “yes” from the publisher almost instantly, although a written agreement took a while longer.

The first thing to do beyond agreeing upon why anyone might read such a book (much needed optimism in the middle of what can feel like a Zombie apocalypse?) was the structure, which essentially meant the contents. Here’s how the structure developed.

You can see that one ‘filter’ we used was whether an idea was optimistic. So, no wars, climate disasters, cyber-crime, disease, bullying, poverty, unemployment, feral states, pandemics, evil robots, psychotic billionaires, rogue asteroids, or nasty aliens…maybe that’s the next book!

Anyway, above is the final contents. Below this how we got there.

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1.Original contents ideas

Robots & computers

Cities

Space

Oceans

Education & work

Food & drink

Energy & transport

Home & away

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2.Expanded contents ideas

? Vertical farming

? Clean air tech

? Clean energy breakthroughs (e.g. transparent solar, attosecond tech)

? Water tech (precision agriculture, global pricing, water labelling…)

? Space lasers (to spot spills, vegetation health)

? 3D + 4D printing

? Money?

? Jobs

? School

Inequality

Population growth/decline

Money

Living forever

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Part 1: Earth

The City/Smart cities/grids/Hyper-scrappers/pollution solutions/energy/

The Countryside/future of farming/food/carbon capture/future animal rights

Hospitals/obesity cures/personalised medicine/gene editing/robotic surgeons/care/tricorders/human clones

Transport/EVs/AEVs//Drones/Flying cars/hyper-loop, Faster than light travel (

Room temperature super conductors (everlasting batteries?)

localisation

Part 2: The Sea

Floating Towns

Underwater Worlds

Free-Range Fish Farming

Invisibility?

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Part 3: The Body

Exoskeletons & Wearables

Bionic Hearing & Vision

Body Hacking & Modification

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Part 4: The Living World?

Rewilding and Natural Zones/De-extinction

Future water/geoengineering

Uplifted Animals and Revived Species

The Worldwide Wood

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Part 5: Robots and A.I.

Our New Non-Human Friends/robot rights/avatar companions/robot love/exo-skeletons/nano-bots

Flocks of Wild Drones

Brain-computer interfaces

Quantum computing/DNA computing/AGI/superintelligence

The internet of things/humans/everything

Cyber-crime/blockchain/crypto

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Part 6: In Orbit

Satellites

Orbitals

Collecting Space Junk

Antigravity

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Part 7: The Moon

Peaks of Eternal Light

The Lunar Mines

The Lunternet

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Part 8: Mars, Venus, and the Asteroids

The Cloud-Cities of Venus

Exploring Mars by Train/space tourism/terraforming/space elevators

Asteroid Mining

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Part 9: The Far Future

The Outer Planets (Jupiter, Saturn)

Generation / cryo-sleep star ships

The Solar Neighbourhood

Dyson Spheres/

Atomic scale manufacturing, nanotech & superabundance

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Telekinesis (Brain-machine interfaces)

Teleportation

Time travel

Brain uploading/mind melds

Aliens

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3.Revised contents ideas

Cities

Somewhere to live

Floating cities

Underwater cities

Sustainable cities

Rewilding

Urban air

Something to eat

Precision agriculture

Urban farming

Printed food

Genetic modification

Power to the people

Smart energy grids & appliances

Vibration energy harvesting

Dessert & space solar

Transparent solar

Micro-scale wind

Hydrogen batteries

Our bodies

Wearable doctors

Genetic medicine

Robotic surgery

Nano-medicine

Brain augmentation

Exo-skeletons

Hybrid humans

Space

Space transport

Space-engineering

Space cities

Space junk

Getting around

Mobility pods

Autonomous buses

Hyper-fast trains

Pilotless planes

Intelligent shoes

Our machines

Machines that talk

Machines that think

A Visit to a Robot Nursery

Thought control & brain-machine interfaces

Quantum & DNA computing?

Virtual worlds

Digital body doubles

Mirror worlds

A fully sensory internet

Fully immersive gaming

An internet of everything

Sending feelings by email

Our friends

Digital relatives from our past

Genetically modified pets

Aliens

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4. Another revise

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Part 1: Earth

The City

The Countryside

Hospitals

Transport

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Part 2: The Sea

Floating Towns

The Underwater World

Sea Farming

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Part 3: The Body

Augmentation

Human-machine interface

Bio-hacking

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Part 4: The Living World

Rewilding and natural zones

Uplifted animals and revived species

The Worldwide Wood

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Part 5: Robots and A.I.

Our Humanoid Friends

Flocks of Wild Drones

Crawling, slithering, and flying: the new robots.

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Part 6: In Orbit

Space Junk

Satellites

Orbitals

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Part 7: The Moon

Peaks of Eternal Light

The Lunar Mines

The Lunternet

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Part 8: Mars, Venus, and the Asteroids

The Cloud-Cities of Venus

Explore Mars by Train

Asteroid Mining

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Part 9: The Far Future

The Outer Planets (Jupiter, Saturn)

Generation / cryosleep starships

The Solar Neighbourhood

Dyson Spheres

Aliens

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5. Roughly the final structure(a few ideas never made it)

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Table of Contents

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1.?? Preface

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In which we introduce the book, the themes explored and our hopes for the future.

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Part 1: Earth

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We begin in the near-future, and what life on Earth could look like with new sustainable technology. Each story explores a different corner of the world. Do you think we might mention new attitudes and behaviours also?

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2.?? “A Day in the City”

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Dara and Lek visit new Bangkok with their parents for a day out.

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Themes explored: the new urban environment of green cities, with solar power, smart energy grids and appliances, vertical farming, flowers, trees, robots, and drones.

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3.?? “The Sun Harvest”

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Amir helps his father in the Saharan solar fields during festival.

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Themes explored: solar power, re-greening, rewilding, precision farming, water harvesting, robots.

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4.?? “Upgraded Aunt”

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Aimee and George go to visit their aunt in the hospital as she prepares to travel to Mars.

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Themes explored: nano-technology, robot surgery, bio-engineering, human-machine interface, neuro-technology, digital body doubles, genomics, personalised medicine, 3-D printing of pharmaceuticals, gamification of medicine/physical activity?

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5.?? “An Airship Voyage”

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Sample story.

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Amara travels by airship with her mother from Dar es Salaam to Johannesburg and makes a new friend.

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Themes explored: transportation, re-wilding, passenger drones, airships, hyper-loop trains, rockets, personal mobility pods?

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Part 2: The Sea

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In this section we explore contemporary notions of settlement at sea – above and below the surface.

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6.?? “Afloat At Sea”

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Mei visits her cousins on a new floating city.

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Themes explored: life at sea, sustainable fishing, floating cities, solar, robots

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7.?? “Journey to the Bottom of the Sea.

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Mei goes on a journey to the underwater cities with her cousins.

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Themes explored: underwater architecture, settling under the sea, deep water sea-life, submarines, recyclable atmospheres, oxygen and water generators, deep ocean bed mining? , removal of ocean plastics and rubbish

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Part 3: The Living World

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In this section we explore conservation and the importance of wildlife sanctuaries and natural spaces, venture into cloning and reviving old species, the ideas behind rewilding, and then into the possibilities behind robots and artificial intelligence as a new part of the living world

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8.?? “Walking with Elephants”

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Fatima visits a nature reserve usually closed to humans, where wildlife roam free.

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Themes explored: Rewiliding, DMZs, refugiums and “involuntary parks”, the importance of biological diversity and wildlife. What’s the word meaning bringing extinct species back to life? (using DNA samples)

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9.?? “The Worldwide Wood”

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Leo visits the Jurassium, where mammoths roam and people try to talk to fungus.

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Themes explored: animal intelligence, sentience? “uplifting”, revived species, fungal networks (the “worldwide wood”) and communication networks. Wood and bamboo skyscrapers? Sensory internet? (allowing people to send and receive feelings from humans and other animal species)

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10.??????????????? “Our New Non-Human Friends”

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To get home, Marco must travel with a new robot companion across a land peopled with robots and A.I.

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Themes explored: robots, artificial intelligence, digital consciousness, the future of the Internet, swarms, “wild” machines. Lifelong personal avatars, educating robots by allowing them to grow up among humans?

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Part 4: Welcome to the Solar System

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Explores life in orbit, on the moon, and on the nearby planets.

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11.??????????????? “The Junk Collector”

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Will helps his mother in Earth orbit as they collect space junk to make sure the space around Earth is safe.

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Themes explored: life in low-Earth orbit, orbitals, space junk, space archaeology.

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12.??????????????? “Peaks of Eternal Light”

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Thabo helps a new arrival from Earth to settle in school.

Themes explored: life on the moon, peaks of eternal light, lunar mining, the lunar Internet (Lunternet), history and future of moon landings.

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13.??????????????? “Birthday on Venus”

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Sample story.

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Samit celebrates his birthday in the Venusian cloud-city of Tereshkova Port.

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Themes explored: Venusian cloud-cities, “Waldos”, future exploration of Venus. AI explorers?

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14.??????????????? “Exploring Mars by Train”

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Adam and Ma’ayan travel by train across Mars to visit their grandmother in the Valles Marineris.

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Themes explored: settlement on Mars, terraforming, trains.

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15.??????????????? ?“Miners of the Asteroids”

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En-route from Ceres to Vesta Kai and his family must solve a problem as they navigate through the asteroid belt.

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Themes explored: spaceships, space travel, asteroid mining.

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Part 5: The Far Future

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16.??????????????? “Titan by Plane”

Serena goes on a plane ride to the shores of the Kraken Mare in far-future Titan.

Themes explored: Outer planets, air flight, Saturn, exploration of the outer solar system.

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17.??????????????? “Starship to Sirius”

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Growing up on a generation starship travelling to the Sirius star system, Aurora goes to visit her mother in the captain’s seat as the ship encounters an unexpected signal.

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18.??????????????? “First Encounters”

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Far out in space, Aurora and her family must come face to face with what may be a first encounter with aliens.

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19.??????????????? “Life on a Dyson Sphere”

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In the very far future where the solar system has been converted into a giant sphere around the sun, Luna is bored during a history lesson and dreams of what the future will look like instead.

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20.??????????????? Afterword

In which we ask the readers to imagine the future they would make themselves.

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