On This Day in Fiction

Learn what speculative fiction writers of the past imagined for our present.

[On This Day in Fiction @this_fiction]

June 7, 2025
A tree
Cannot grow
In its parents’ shadows.
(Parable of the Sower, 1993)

[On This Day in Fiction @this_fiction]

March 3, 2025 The narrator takes a walk to feel the rare Southern California rain. (Parable of the Sower, 1993) #OnThisDay #sciencefiction

[On This Day in Fiction @this_fiction]

2025: Bill and Ted welcome their younger selves to their mansion. (Bill and Ted Face the Music, 2020)

[On This Day in Fiction @this_fiction]

September 1 through 3, 2024 The Bell Riots occur San Francisco, changing the outlook and history of the United States of America (and ultimately the United Federation of Planets). (Star Trek Deep Space 9: Past Tense) #StarTrekDS9 #sciencefiction

[On This Day in Fiction @this_fiction]

August 17, 2024: The following is the entry in The Parable of the Sower:
God is Power-
Infinite,
Irresistible,
Inexorable,
Indifferent.
And yet, God is Pliable-
Trickster,
Teacher,
Chaos,
Clay.
God exists to be shaped.
God is Change.
(Parable of the Sower, 1993)

[On This Day in Fiction @this_fiction]

July 30, 2024: One of the astronauts on a mission to Mars is killed in an accident. (Parable of the Sower, 1993) #OctaviaButler #scifi

[On This Day in Fiction @this_fiction]

July 20, 2024: On the opening page of The Parable of the Sower, the narrator celebrates her birthday. (Parable of the Sower, 1993) #scifi #sciencefiction #OctaviaButler

[On This Day in Fiction @this_fiction]

2024, no date given: Edgar Malroy is expelled from college and meets a self-aware shopping cart. (Scepticism, Inc., 1998)

[On This Day in Fiction @this_fiction]

2023 is the year Hail Mary leaves earth, going by how long ago George Washington is said to have been born.
(Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, 2021)

[On This Day in Fiction @this_fiction]

Soylent Green, 1973. The Year: 2022. The Place: New York City. The Population, 40,000,000. #scifi

[On This Day in Fiction @this_fiction]

In the 2020 novel The Silence, the 2022 Super Bowl features Titans vs Seahawks #SuperBowl #sciencefiction #scifi

[On This Day in Fiction @this_fiction]

Food in 2021: “Sam ordered first. Wonton soup, sweet and sour pork - all of it made from meat and vegetable culture stock, an industry which was finally competing with animal husbandry and plant farming.” (Macrolife, 1979) #Farming #sciencefiction

[On This Day in Fiction @this_fiction]

Driving through New Mexico in 2021: “He thought of his own death, the death of all those he knew, the passing of humanity through historical time. ‘What are we?’ He thought. ‘What is left? Everything is hidden from us, as if deliberately.’ (Macrolife, 1979)

[On This Day in Fiction @this_fiction]

the openness of free space was matched by the openness of inquiring minds.” (3/3)

[On This Day in Fiction @this_fiction]

By 2021, there are human colonies on the moon, Mars, Ganymede, and the asteroids according to the 1979 novel Macrolife. (1/3)

[On This Day in Fiction @this_fiction]

“The colonies were a new branch of humanity, joined to their environment through a problem-solving struggle which demanded of them the resolve to work through disagreements to the best possible conclusion, whatever that might turn out to be; (2/3)

[On This Day in Fiction @this_fiction]

Age in 2021: “Don’t be old-fashioned. Fifty-six is what forty was half a century ago.” (Macrolife, 1979) #SciFi #ScienceFiction

[On This Day in Fiction @this_fiction]

July 9, 2021: The first humans on Mars face a major disaster (Mission to Mars, 2000) @DonCheadle @GarySinise #Mars

[On This Day in Fiction @this_fiction]

July, 2021: After 30 years on a desert planet, the first human colony receives a signal from Earth (On Thursday We Leave for Home, #TwilightZone, 1963) #SciFi

[On This Day in Fiction @this_fiction]

#NYC in 2021: “The indoor climate of the upper levels was perfect, and the tiers gave an open view of land, ocean, and sky, but it would be a long time before the New City acquired the sense of tradition belonging to the original ground level.” (Macrolife, 1979)