Life, as they say, imitates art, and if there’s one art form that seems uncannily skilled at predicting future technologies it’s probably literature (sorry film fans, but Steven Spielberg couldn’t have existed without Philip K. Dick). As things accelerate (and books become re-shapped by new technologies like the Kindle), it’s helpful to keep turning to forward-looking sci-fi novels to get some idea of how new gadgets and networks might affect society over several decades.

Of course the Listicles reading list is, well, exclusively made up of lists, but if we were to read non-list-form novels, we would probably pick up one of those mentioned in Anthro Goggles’s listicle of 4 Sci-Fi Books For Social Media Junkies. We especially like the sound of Verner Vinge’s Rainbows End, set in the mid-21st century, about a man cured of dementia by a new drug and forced to adjust to a world where everyone is really into “virtualization.”

(via i09)