Dan Godfrey’s new science fiction thriller The Synapse Sequence is published today by Titan Books, set in a world where justice and jobs are meted out by algorithms. Here he discusses his approach to writing a story set the day after tomorrow…

The choice of how far to push into the future when writing science fiction has never been scarier. Rapidly advancing technology in the real-world means SF set both far into the future and on the immediate horizon can quickly feel dated. I mean, will we really have space opera-style spaceships stuffed full of people (e.g. Star Destroyers or USS Enterprise) given the likely level of future automation and robotics?

It is within near-future science fiction though that I most often hear writers expressing doubts. Until recently, the writer’s mind has always appeared to be a few steps ahead, but now those engaged in finding applications for information technology appear to be in the driving seat. But let’s not forget that writers in other fields have had to cope – and have coped – with similar issues. For example, Red Storm Rising (Tom Clancy, 1986) tells of a conflict between the Soviet Union and NATO. A few years later? No Soviet Union. The world changed. Thriller writers everywhere had to find a new enemy, and Red Storm Rising went from vision of the future to interesting (and very exciting!) Alternate History.

All of my novels have been set either partially or fully in the near-future. Looking at how others approach things, there seem to be two main strategies when writing near-future SF: either make changes across a large sweep of society, or take a more modest (some might say focused!) approach.

My writing falls into the latter category. This is because technology is rarely adapted universally, nor does it completely destroys what went before. For instance, Japan is regularly held up as being the most technologically advanced country in the world – and yet it also remains one of the largest users of cassette tapes and fax machines. More pressingly, however, is that the bulk of readers tend to be switched off if too many unfamiliar or competing ideas are all thrown into the same pot, especially if a book gets bogged down in re-naming familiar technologies to make them appear more ‘alien’.

For the above reasons, I think it’s better to push one aspect – the central concept of the novel – and develop the rest from threads that can be found in mainstream media or scientific journals.

In my earlier novels, New Pompeii and Empire of Time, the central idea was that objects and people from the distant past could be transported into the present. I very much doubt if anyone at Google or Facebook is working on that at the moment! The rest of the near-future setting was built firstly from the responses to this technology, and secondly by emphasising trends that were already happening.

I’d read a number of articles about the economies of Asia (China and India) purchasing farms and vineyards in Europe and Australasia in order to secure produce such as wine and lamb for their home markets. This then struck a chord with some of my Roman research: Crassus was the richest man in Rome, but never owned a computer. Is a poor man in the modern world ‘richer’ than Crassus? But this philosophical puzzle could also be turned around, if the citizens of New Pompeii could drink wine and eat meat, I wondered, were they better off than people in Europe who owned modern tech, but for whom lamb and wine was a luxury? Mix in a bit of antibiotic resistance (also in the news) and the setting for New Pompeii – but more specifically Empire of Time – was set. Interestingly enough, Empire of Time also refers to a shortage of chocolate due to demand exceeding supply – it was in the news recently that genetics and climate change may create a chocolate crisis similar to that in my book. (Bananas are also under threat in the same way!)

The main concept of my latest novel, The Synapse Sequence, is that it is possible to patch together multiple people’s memories into a single environment which can then be explored by an investigator. I agreed the outline of the novel with my publisher just after the release of New Pompeii… and this also highlights another issue with writing the near future – writing and publication timescales means it can be highly nerve wracking! For instance, some of the things I’ve read whilst writing and editing The Synapse Sequence include articles on:

  • AI being used to recreate images from inside the human brain. At least two teams working on this, as I read similar articles in two different journals with differing approaches and results.
  • Integration of facial recognition technology into surveillance systems – both in the west and in China.
  • Creation of the first “smart city” in Hangzhou where every citizen’s movements, purchases and interactions on social media are recorded and analysed.
  • AIs hunting for clues in crime scene data.

The above were on top of continuing trends regarding the automation of working class jobs, replacement of white collar jobs with AI, concerns regarding the programming of bias into algorithms, and use of technology in fighting crime.

What does all this mean? Well, I guess the life of a writer was never meant to be easy, and it all comes down to a single question: what problems are we facing today and how can these be addressed? It’s within these gaps that I believe near future science fiction can thrive.

The Synapse Sequence is out now from Titan Books; order it here from Amazon.co.uk