Yes, there are plenty of non-fiction writers aroudn writing useful things, but genuinely prophetic fiction (and poetry) is much harder to find. I imagine it is out there, on the margins. I've not found it myself yet, but am always hunting.
Octavia Butler's duology The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents is becoming more scarily prophetic by the day, but I'm hoping that's not the final future that awaits us.
There is also a kind of weird novel out there called The Ministry for the Future, which talks about global/institutional efforts to reverse climate change. I wasn't really sure what to make of it. It's by a guy called Kim Stanley Robinson and it's not written in a particularly compelling style, but the ideas were mostly new to me and are based on real concepts that exist in the real world. And unlike most of these books, it ended on a fairly optimistic note.
Here's my two cents, give or take. Science fiction writers have long explored the "what if" question associated with various consequences of a world dominated by the Machine and its minions and potentially run by uber powerful AIs, what it means to be "truly" human when scientists fully figure out how to wield their new (and soon to arrive) toys and it becomes common to custom design your babies, augment yourself through biological and technical means, the consequences of the unchecked raping and pillaging of our planet, and so on. Off the top of my head, check out Philip K. Dick, Neal Asher, "The Expanse" series, of course Orwell, Ray Bradbury, Madeline L'Engle . . . and there are many others. Matthew Crawford writes about the impact of the Machine, and in his own way describes ways to resist in his books: "Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work" (Published in London as The Case for Working with Your Hands) Viking; "The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction", and one I'm reading right now, "Why We Drive: Toward a Philosophy of the Open Road." And, of course, there are Paul's terrific essays and fiction.
I don't know if you could call Tolkien prophetic because his writing is so mythic and timeless, but he's the first author I thought of. Susanna Clarke's Piranesi could also be read as prophetic, maybe?
That is a very good question. I don't have any immediately obvious answers, but I'd love to hear those of others.
Rod Dreher
I have read him but I was more referring to fiction.
Yes, there are plenty of non-fiction writers aroudn writing useful things, but genuinely prophetic fiction (and poetry) is much harder to find. I imagine it is out there, on the margins. I've not found it myself yet, but am always hunting.
The lack of that kind of literary work probably says a lot about our current state of affairs.
Octavia Butler's duology The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents is becoming more scarily prophetic by the day, but I'm hoping that's not the final future that awaits us.
There is also a kind of weird novel out there called The Ministry for the Future, which talks about global/institutional efforts to reverse climate change. I wasn't really sure what to make of it. It's by a guy called Kim Stanley Robinson and it's not written in a particularly compelling style, but the ideas were mostly new to me and are based on real concepts that exist in the real world. And unlike most of these books, it ended on a fairly optimistic note.
Here's my two cents, give or take. Science fiction writers have long explored the "what if" question associated with various consequences of a world dominated by the Machine and its minions and potentially run by uber powerful AIs, what it means to be "truly" human when scientists fully figure out how to wield their new (and soon to arrive) toys and it becomes common to custom design your babies, augment yourself through biological and technical means, the consequences of the unchecked raping and pillaging of our planet, and so on. Off the top of my head, check out Philip K. Dick, Neal Asher, "The Expanse" series, of course Orwell, Ray Bradbury, Madeline L'Engle . . . and there are many others. Matthew Crawford writes about the impact of the Machine, and in his own way describes ways to resist in his books: "Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work" (Published in London as The Case for Working with Your Hands) Viking; "The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction", and one I'm reading right now, "Why We Drive: Toward a Philosophy of the Open Road." And, of course, there are Paul's terrific essays and fiction.
John Michael Greer, both fiction and non. Nate Hagens. Dimitri Orlov. There are many others.
I don't know if you could call Tolkien prophetic because his writing is so mythic and timeless, but he's the first author I thought of. Susanna Clarke's Piranesi could also be read as prophetic, maybe?
Try "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand.
80yr old book that describes today in a startlingly accurate way.
It could have been written last month.