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I recently finished the original short story version of this work, and wanna discuss it here since it was never published standalone. It was fun and fascinating. It's kinda like cosmic horror for the characters in the story, but what is horror for them is relatively mundane for us the readers. It makes for a neat change in perspective. I like the worldbuilding. Even if it feels a bit contrived, it's worth it for the fascinating concept. The story does have some issues common to the dominant writing of the era. The cast of characters is entirely male, mostly in academia, and presumably white. So that gets a bit stinky. Overall, it was worth reading.

i became one of those guys who "starts reading" dune but doesn't really start, but now i'm really in the swing of it lol

I don't remember when i finished but it was a while ago by now. Great read! really unique concept. Also the themes and story are great. No spoilers, but I loved the ending.

This book rides the line between sci-fi and nonfiction science predictions. The stories are nice, but their main draw comes from the ideas they illustrate about how our world could look in 20 or so years. Each short story is followed by a nonfiction segment explaining what the short story is supposed to illustrate. Those segments are pretty boring as most of what they say can be observed just by reading the short stories and having a little reading comprehension.

The predictions themselves aren't likely to age well. even for their time I think they lack a much-needed political analysis. For technology, they are quite imaginative and consider the interaction between AI and other emerging technologies like AR/VR and 3D printing (fascinating!), but the most they can imagine for emerging politics is UBI and more neoliberalism (boring!).