Do you enjoy science fiction? I do. Since I was a kid. And 2021 was a great year for building on this genre.

Isaac Asimov has had a great impact on my life. I was born in 1951, the same year Asimov published the first volume of his Foundation Series. When I first read foundation around age 13, I was immediately taken by Harry Seldon’s efforts to use math to predict the future. Especially broad complexity. Much later in life, I learned to use agent-based and stochastic complexity modeling myself.

Science fiction is speculative fiction that typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, and extraterrestrial life. It has been called the “literature of ideas”, and it often explores the potential consequences of scientific, social, and technological innovations. (Wikipedia)

Literature of ideas. I like that.

Foundation showed up as a television series in 2021. I recommend you read the actual books to get the full depth of Asimov’s effort. But the on-screen version isn’t bad story telling. Great special effects, too.

Together with the Star Trek franchise Discovery and Picard, sci-fi fans have lots of enjoy on their video screens during 2021.

Enjoy Science Fiction – Building on Ayn Rand

But perhaps my most enjoyable sci-fi reading this year came from S. M. Anderson and his four-part Eden Chronicles series, starting with A Bright Shore. You will find a familiar premise – discovery of parallel earths and the ability to transition colonization to these. The twist is that entrepreneurs on Earth become tired of their oppressive nanny state and seek to return to freedom and individual responsibility.

This is exactly the scenario used in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, where the “makers” withdrew their services from a society dominated by “takers”. Good ideas well executed in these books. Plus the need to fight some dastardly aliens in parallel universes, as well.

You should enjoy science fiction as a way to open your minds to new possibilities and move on from the tiresome old problems here on Earth.