Okay, so Tim O'Dwyer liked the book. SF books have never been intended as forecasts but, in part, as lenthy musings about the future. What happens if this tend is extrapolated? An equally valid book may suggest a future in which rabid greenies have destroyed much of the world's electricity generators, and strong armed the government into building heaps of alternative energy projects which generate only a fraction of the power required, at the wrong times. A large part of commercial life has collapsed and battery storage of power has become all important. Meanwhile Greenies are insisting that everything is alright - and handing out heavy jail terms to anyone who disagrees. To top it all off the climate has turned bitterly cold, despite scientists insisting that temperatures are warmer than usual so, really, the earth was saved in the nick of time.
Farfetched? Maybe, but it is an SF novel..

Prophesy was one of the features of the Holy Bible, so why should not man continue to make prophesies. The human mind is a marvelous mechanism, and it is good to see one installed into a Queensland solicitor, who has taken the time to share a futuristic novel which appealed to him with us.

What do you think they would have thought when Jules Verne wrote his novels, or Leonardo Da Vinci drew pictures of helicopters. The prophetic writer is a very interesting phenomena. Richard Bach writes in a fascinating style, in the Bridge Across Forever, speculating that we exist both as physical beings and as spiritual beings. He also wrote a novel postulating that there are many alternative universes, and we choose the one we are in. It is one of the mysteries of the world, how we are the only flying rock, in our immediate vicinity, with a discernable civilization. What if the Dr Who of popular television fame is written by another Da Vinci?

I really don’t know, and the more I know the more I realize I don’t know a whole lot of things. I don’t know why a woman one day approached me in church, and asked me to pray for her sick daughter. I did, and the little girl recovered, but I don’t know if I or my God, had anything to do with it. I do know that it happened.

What about psychokinetics. They say some people can move objects by mental force. If so why not travel in time, like the Lobsang Rampa novels proposed, that the Tibetans can do. There is so much we don’t know, and so much we could know, that I find the easiest route, is to trust in Almighty God, but don’t tempt the Devil.

As a student of law, I have looked at the Holy Bible as a template for good government. Its systems engineered to ensure that outcome are pure genius. Seventy percent of its content is directed to delivering justice. Only some is directed to eternal life, so it is worth reading continually too

Perhaps neither fantasy of the science fiction variety nor of the religious variety is really helpful right now. If there are problems of global warming as a result of human activity, then the most hard-headed and realistic analyses and remedies are surely required. Otherwise we might as well send soldiers into battle with pop-guns with little 'BANG!' flags. Hey, not a bad idea, if only we can get the Taliban to agree to it. A book on THAT topic could combine both science fiction and religious delusions and make a million from the latte set.

Joe

It's a good light hearted article, asking interesting questions lateral thinking minds would enjoy. Most science fiction ends up as scientific reality, even now we can theoretically if not practically solve things like space and time travel, all we have to do is create the right method. Once we open and use dimensional doors, time and universal travel will become a reality in some way, just as we are exploring Mars and our solar system remotely now. In the last few weeks they've discovered the remains of deep lakes with sandy beaches on Mars, maybe it's a sign from the past as to what may be the fate of our planet under our present direction.

I doubt we could go back or forward in time and influence it, we'd probably be unseen observers in the past and future. Time travel could create many dilemma's, we could observe technology from the future and create it before we invented it. Now there's a sticky paradox to consider.

I've read articles where they've sent a sound to another point and it arrived before they sent it, only fractions of a second before, it was from a Beatles tune. I've no idea whether they've repeated it or it was luck, either way it happened, and gives some credence to the theory. We don't need a time machine to warn us of the future, there's a big flashing sign in front of us, “disaster ahead, fools in control”.