Using novels to pinpoint forthcoming conflicts around the world

[Mark]

While not specifically science fiction and fantasy related, here's an interesting article about German research to predict war from novels.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...

The main character in Six Days of the Condor by James Grady analyzed novels for the CIA, looking for predictive intelligence. I guess it happens in the real world too. This book was made into a good movie Three Days of the Condor, starring Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway.

[Trike]

That’s interesting that someone (of course it was the Germans) took this long-suspected idea and turned it into a quantifiable prediction machine.

Science Fiction writers of the late 60s and early 70s who placed their realistic sci-fi novels in the early- to mid-21st century talked largely about two things: overpopulation and global warming. Most of them were right, with varying degrees of accuracy, from Logan's Run to Stand on Zanzibar to Make Room! Make Room! (aka Soylent Green).

In the 1997 book The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us about America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny they talk about entertainment predicting future events as artists are tapped into the zeitgeist. (Oh look, German again.)