2041: Twelve Short Stories About the Future by Top Science Fiction Writers

Very YA, but in a good way. I would have loved this when I was 13 or so. Definitely Sense of Wonder and What If. Think about some of the classics you learned when you were a teen, that turned either you or some of your classmates onto SF, like [b:All Summer in a Day|45306054|All Summer in a Day|Ray Bradbury|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1556264551l/45306054._SY75_.jpg|71122137] or [b:A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories|50014|A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories|Ray Bradbury|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1407107292l/50014._SY75_.jpg|2248039] or [b:The Lottery|6219655|The Lottery|Shirley show more Jackson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1351885380l/6219655._SX50_.jpg|15161007]... that's what these very short stories, almost vignettes, aspire to.

Many story ideas here could be developed into novels.
Many of the authors have written adult novels that are widely respected and enjoyed.
Do bear in mind the context of the time, of 1991.

Much Ado about (Censored) - Connie Willis - satire of censorship, relevant to those of you paying attention to the 'cancel culture' trend

Who's Gonna Rock Us Home? - Nancy Springer - Dad uses something like Soma and wants his son to, too; the kid just wants - no, needs - to play his guitar. Even if it means joining a street gang.

Lose Now, Pay Later - Carol Farley - Eat what you like... every hedonist's dream?

A Quiet One - Anne McCaffrey - Even in the future there's a place for horses and the ppl who love them.

Moby James - Patricia A. McKillip - a 'reluctant reader' finds the meaning of life in his viewer's edition of Moby Dick.

If I Had the Wings of an Angel - Joe Haldeman - for some reason only kids up to a certain weight can fly on this space station.

You Want it When? - Kara Dalkey - student worker Dorothy, using fax that can send actual originals, invents Time Travel... or does she?

Ear - Jane Yolen - maybe there's a reason your kids are glued to their devices; be glad they don't have Ears.

The Last Out - Resa Nelson and David Alexander Smith - Boston flooded, Fenway rotting, the ETs have ruined the traditions of baseball... if you understand the sport better than I do you'll probably like the story better than I did.

Free Day - Peg Kerr - intimate vignette illustrating a larger (worldwide, probably) dystopia

Beggarman - Susan Shwartz - Spaceborn kids bully a displaced Earther teen because he's nostalgic for the dirtball he came from. What is his destiny, and how will he find it?

Old Glory - Bruce Coville - Thirteen stripes and 62 stars, it's supposed to represent freedom. What if techniques used by the brownshirts, by scared ppl under Stalin, are approved in the US?

Of the authors whose names I don't recognize, I'm most interested in reading more by Springer.
3.5 stars rounded up on behalf of my inner 'tween.
Read for free a scanned copy on openlibrary.org. show less

I enjoyed this collection of short stories about possible future. Connie Willis' Much Ado About [Censored] made me both think about censorship and chuckle at the absurdity of various groups banning lines from Hamlet until there was practically nothing left. On the opposite spectrum, stories such as Carol Farley's Lose Now, Pay Later and Bruce Coville's Old Glory made me think about not taking responsibility and rights for granted.

One of the stories in this collection (Carol Farley's Lose Now, Pay Later) made it into a 7th grade English text book, many years ago. The story stayed in my memory for some time, and provoked me into buying the book. The other stories are sophomoric, and if not upheld by nostalgia, I might say the same thing about the story for which I sought this book to begin with.

A non-technical sc-if is novel, since there is little science in the stories.
More fiction than science.