New Future

The future becomes outdated faster than it gets invented: everything that seemed promising, exciting, and close to us just a year (two years, two decades) ago either has been pushed back indefinitely or has simply moved to a far periphery. As a result, the “future factory,” which science-fiction literature has always been thought of as, stalls or runs idle. The authors of the collection “New Future” take on the heroic task of restarting the gears of this factory and offering the reader an image of the future that can already be glimpsed from today. And, as usual, this image tells us about the present—not less, and maybe even more—than about what awaits us ahead. In the age of anti-utopias it’s important not to forget that time has not curled into a circle and hasn’t stopped flowing. The future exists—though not quite idyllic. It’s pleasant to realize that the authors of this collection—from Shamil Idiyatullin and Eduard Verkhin to Alexey Salnikov and Vladimir Berezin—don’t lose their sense of historical perspective. As long as I’m alive—I hope.

13 unusual stories by contemporary Russian writers. In the future they offer, you can get lost and find yourself, and also try to see the stories that are “more shameless than literature.”