One of the ghostwriting books that I just wrapped up was a near-future thriller, a la Blade Runner, if a bit less so. The world isn’t that much of a jump away from what we know now; it’s set fewer than ten years out, and nothing in the book is much of a stretch (other than the overall competence of select organizations).
Writing it was so much FUN.
I’m usually of the opinion that writing science fiction should be done by people who have some kind of experience in SCIENCE. Like, ALLCAPS SCIENCE. Or engineering.
But of course that’s just a bias on my part. I’m okay at guessing what the very near future feels like. And I’m okay at distorting a few things for the sake of a what-if.
And it was FUN.
I think this is just another attack of imposter syndrome. I don’t need to do a whole lot more research in order to get to near-future science fiction writing, the way I do if I want to write believable battles in high fantasy.* I just need to keep paying attention.
*Which research continues to be FUN, by the way, although it does wreck a lot of battle scenes in movies for me. “Don’t do that, you idiots! Go for the high ground where you’re not in a freaking bottleneck! And you DO have guns, n’est-ce pas?”
…
If you liked this post, please check out my tie-in gaming SF novel, Blood in Space: The Icon Mutiny. This one’s not near-future SF, but it was a lot of fun to write.