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Bruno De Marques

Goodreads Author

Website

http://brunodemarques.com/

Twitter

brunodemarques

Genre

Fiction, Science Fiction, Classics

Member Since

October 2015

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I never expected to be here at 43.

And, by “here”, I mean planet-side. I thought, by now, I’d be doing whatever I’d do as a grown up, in a larger world (I presently work in Marketing in case you’re wondering). A world with many worlds – not just one.

Is this my 16-year-old-self speaking for me or my 43-year-old one? You’ve guessed it! Do you still have your 16-year-old-self in you? You do? I guess congratulations are in order, for few survive the ordeals of adulthood.

(FYI: I have two daughters to raise and a wife I’d like to keep. My 16-year-old-self could be on his last leg …)

Like rats in a maze, we’re thrilled everytime communications become a little faster or some trendy device gets an upgrade, but we seem to care little about what’s happe I never expected to be here at 43.

And, by “here”, I mean planet-side. I thought, by now, I’d be doing whatever I’d do as a grown up, in a larger world (I presently work in Marketing in case you’re wondering). A world with many worlds – not just one.

Is this my 16-year-old-self speaking for me or my 43-year-old one? You’ve guessed it! Do you still have your 16-year-old-self in you? You do? I guess congratulations are in order, for few survive the ordeals of adulthood.

(FYI: I have two daughters to raise and a wife I’d like to keep. My 16-year-old-self could be on his last leg …)

Like rats in a maze, we’re thrilled everytime communications become a little faster or some trendy device gets an upgrade, but we seem to care little about what’s happening beyond it. What about transportation? And all the other technologies that could make a difference in expanding our world?

“A Larger world”. Sir Alec Guinness couldn’t have said best. Of course, I wasn’t counting on “the Force”. I was counting on man’s ingenuity and endeavoring spirit, that seemed to be alive-and-well right up until the seventies and then … poof! We were expanding our world, our universe, just fine and then … just poof!

I guess it’s nobody’s fault, really. Perhaps mine, in expecting too much of the world. You see, I was born in an age when expectations about the future where probably at their highest ever. If you’re a child of the 1970s like me, you may get this right away. If you’re not … stick around. I’m kind of hoping this condition is contagious.

We had just gone from propeller-airplanes (1945) to landing a spacecraft on the moon (1969) in as little as 24 years. So it’s only logical that young people would grow up wondering what their place in the future would be. So logical, apparently, that Science-fiction itself had long been “on fire” with the prospect of what the 21st century would bring. Not only about the high-concept tech, but also over the options that all those changes would bring to everyone.

15 years into the new century and, apart from smart gadgets and smart TVs, in most ways, it even feels we’re going backwards. The Concorde, the supersonic airliner, was decommissioned in 2003 making it impossible for you and me to cross the Atlantic Ocean in under 3 hours (outrageously expensive, sure, but still possible then). For the first time in transportation history, distances had become longer.

But that’s not all: Apollo 17 remains the most recent manned flight beyond low Earth orbit. “Apollo” and “most recent” in the same sentence: doesn’t it feel wrong? It’s been 40 years. C’mon!

But what can one Marketing guy do? He can write about it. My humble contribution: Future Man, a tribute to classic Sci-Fi writers, their concepts and their expectations for the future.

Bruno De Marques

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What are you currently working on?

Bruno De Marques I've just started becoming more active on twitter (@brunodemarques) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/bruno.demarq...) and I am now regularly blo…moreI've just started becoming more active on twitter (@brunodemarques) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/bruno.demarq...) and I am now regularly blogging at BrunoDeMarques.com. I'd love to connect with you on any platform. (less)

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Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Bruno De Marques They say an author’s first book is often biographic. This is almost the case.
I feel a lot like Vincent De Marcos, the protagonist. The 21st century is…moreThey say an author’s first book is often biographic. This is almost the case.
I feel a lot like Vincent De Marcos, the protagonist. The 21st century is nothing like classic sci-fi writers had foreseen it would be. I’d like it to be different. Or, at least, be able to identify a trend that might lead us to the future promised to us in the 20th century, but there isn’t one. And I feel as powerless as he does to change it.

More than 10 years ago, I went with my boss to see a presentation I thought would be about Antarctic’s geology and tourism potential, by Rainer Daehnhardt, but it was actually about the history of the Antarctic, namely the evidence of the III Reich’s presence in that territory during WW2 and beyond. Something clicked immediately in the sense that one-man-could-make-a-difference after all!

I was on the verge of going looking for them myself but my life, at the time, didn’t lead to it. Vincent’s life, however, will ask big decisions of him and, eventually, he will do what I never got the chance to do. And, for better or for worst, he will experience what I expected to find there.
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Average rating: 4.0 · 6 ratings · 2 reviews · 1 distinct work

Future Man

really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 2015 — 3 editions

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Bruno De Marques's Blog

Are we forfeiting the future?

Are we forfeiting the future?

A new novel from author Bruno de Marques explores the potential of the technological advances imagined in science fiction classics

What happened to the future? We live in 2015 and yet we have little to show for it – no flying cars, no humanoid robots, no manned space exploration. When did those dreams die?

Future Man, the new novel from author Bruno de Marques, seeks to Read more of this blog post »

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