I've been studying the older science fiction and it makes me sad when the authors pin a year on their fictional space accomplishments. From the 60's perspective we'd be living in space and on other worlds by the 90's. It makes me cautious about having 'dated' elements in a story and I write 'social media' instead of Facebook and Twitter. But it can be awkward. Slang is the same. How do you approach this?

Jay Sandover Great question. I do think about this a lot. In my novel, there are a handful of technologies that do not presently exist (at least in public view). My novel is set in the future, far enough ahead that climate change has continued its progress, and the Earth is dying, but I never set a specific date for the novel's present day. A reader could sort of work it out, because I did give some clues about how many generations had passed and how old the oldest character in the novel is (and what events they witnessed), but it's not stated. So, all that being said, I do continue to think about this stuff, but my main concern is creating characters people might connect to, and story lines that will hold your interest for a bunch of pages. As a reader, that's what I always want.

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