“Now we see that multinational companies such as Google, Facebook and financial companies dominate over states and nations,” she says. The world has to some extent followed the dystopian development depicted in cyberpunk literature, according to Ellingen. They reflected the changes of the time, such as globalisation, the advent of computers, and the Internet,” she says. “The books were about the fusion of man and machine. But really it was meant as a social critique of the time and the society he lived in,” says Chattopadhyay.Īuthor Ellingsen refers to the author William Ford Gibson, who wrote in the genre of cyberpunk in the 1980s. “People have perceived the book as prophetic, that Orwell predicted how society can develop in the future. They want to change the way we think about the present.Ĭhattopadhyay points to George Orwell, who in 1948 wrote about a totalitarian society in the book 1984. Many authors and artists in the science fiction genre criticise the society they live in. Ethics and morality are to a large extent set aside in today's international discussion about biotechnology, which is important for authors to keep up with,” she says.Īuthor Berit Ellingsen has published three science fiction novels. There is a lot of talk about what we can achieve, but less talk about whether we should actually do it. “I have a degree in biology and am interested in genetic engineering.

She finds it more exciting to write about how the technology is used. And there are a lot of people who make a living by predicting where the technology will develop. “If you have a good knowledge of technology and follow the news, you will see the trends. This starts the ball rolling, according to Chattopadhyay.Īuthors of science fiction, for example, have written about portable music machines and meat grown in the laboratory long before this became a reality.Īuthor Ellingsen does not find it very difficult to imagine the technology of the future. They have to invent technology that does not exist, but that we can imagine. He points out that writers, filmmakers and game creators must be practical when portraying the technology of the future.

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