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The Future According To Me
Imagine a future where a virus wipes out all humans except those with Attention Deficit Disorder. That's just one of 35 future scenarios that Rob Kutner invents and explores in The Future According to Me.This compilation is brimming with ironic, absurd, and downright bizarre one-page descriptions of possible futures. Inside, readers will find immortal baby boomers (forever with us and always playing '60s music), a new form of onanism that creates an unplanned self-pregnancy crisis, and even intelligent zombies who scheme and plan. The short sketches are reminiscent of futures that Kurt Vonnegut, or his character Kilgore Trout, might have explored in depth. In some of Kutner's vignettes, our desires and wants, deeply pursued by science, create fatuous or insufferable prospects. In others, we're given a glimpse into a random person's life, such as a journal entry from the man who cleans up trash left by time travelers. A testament to a deeply creative mind, The Future According to Me defies categorization and will find a place among those who love pondering questions that begin: “What if …?” --Paul Diamond
20 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 18, 2011
42 people are currently reading
109 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
December 21, 2011
This book read exactly like what I suspect it was - a last-minute, half-assed attempt to make some cash by cobbling together a promotional item for Amazon.
I can honestly say that not one of these "possible futures" seemed inspiring, creative, or capable of causing consideration of new ideas. I also recall that the vast majority of attempts at humor ended up as ineffective attempts to bolster the unchanging mechanism of future irony; this is evidenced by the very first scenario presented in which we experience an ironic bout of global cooling due to overcompensation. Wow - so creative. Surely no one's made that joke before.
I can picture it now: the author looks around the room frantically. "I still need seventeen more scenarios... let's check the front page of Yahoo! News for ideas. Hey, an article about ADD - that'll work! Oh, and I haven't used overpopulation yet; that can be at least six chapters if I stretch it out enough! This is easy!"
Two hours later, he was finished. Brevity is not synonymous with wit, but fortunately for Mr. Kutner and Amazon, there are apparently plenty of folks who don't know the difference.
I can honestly say that not one of these "possible futures" seemed inspiring, creative, or capable of causing consideration of new ideas. I also recall that the vast majority of attempts at humor ended up as ineffective attempts to bolster the unchanging mechanism of future irony; this is evidenced by the very first scenario presented in which we experience an ironic bout of global cooling due to overcompensation. Wow - so creative. Surely no one's made that joke before.
I can picture it now: the author looks around the room frantically. "I still need seventeen more scenarios... let's check the front page of Yahoo! News for ideas. Hey, an article about ADD - that'll work! Oh, and I haven't used overpopulation yet; that can be at least six chapters if I stretch it out enough! This is easy!"
Two hours later, he was finished. Brevity is not synonymous with wit, but fortunately for Mr. Kutner and Amazon, there are apparently plenty of folks who don't know the difference.
June 2, 2017
Was that really only 20 pages? I know I have my text set fairly large to make reading comfortable but this felt like it went on forever! Every story ended with us, the human race, ending. One story, one, where facing certain doom everyone works to together to deal with the giant asteroid about to destroy the world. Moments after dealing with that we're looking for something else to blow to smithereens. Not one story ends happily. Not one future is bright. Thankfully it was short because it was depressing. You'd think an author could envision on good future. It doesn't even have to be perfect just better than the road we're speeding down now. But no. The futurd according to Rob Kutner is fairly horrible. Now I need something upbeat to pull me out of the rut this dug.
November 28, 2011
I liked the idea more than the execution. The thought put into these scenarios is about 'medium', and they focus on snarky more than interesting, and there's no discussion of the implications of them. Too bad.
July 31, 2017
Kinda seemed like I was reading somebody's brainstorm journal. I get what he was trying to accomplish with the bunch of micro stories, but I don't think it was very well executed. I had a few chuckles.
December 17, 2011
What was that?!
February 13, 2012
Quick funny read some of which tease out current trends, some just absurd. All amusing... worth a look!
September 23, 2023
An interesting writing exercise that might have been better to stay in notebooks and drafts.
This is a collection of short pieces on possible futures that I unfortunately found ranged in quality from extremely mildly amusing to painfully cringeworthy. The most appropriate descriptor of these micro fictions is wacky said with one's whole chest with no positive qualifications.
One of the possible futures is transphobic in its bioessentialism around genitals, which I don't think was the intention. However, it does smack of a cishet guy being silly about sex and gender with all the tact one might expect.
I truly don't understand this coming from a successful and respected comedy writer. I also have no idea how so many fantastic performers were convinced to narrate the audiobook. Unfortunately, the dulcet tones of Night Vale's own Cecil Baldwin and intense ranting of the Bitter Buddha were enough to bring this to life.
I feel like I'm being really mean, but it feels like so very little thought or care were put into this. I'm genuinely not knocking this as a creative exercise and think things like this can be great, but that doesn't mean they should be published. I am certain of anyone without the history in the business, and connections Kutner has made any attempt to publish this they would be laughed out of the publisher's office.
I'm glad it was free on Audible and I hope all the narrators got paid.
This is a collection of short pieces on possible futures that I unfortunately found ranged in quality from extremely mildly amusing to painfully cringeworthy. The most appropriate descriptor of these micro fictions is wacky said with one's whole chest with no positive qualifications.
One of the possible futures is transphobic in its bioessentialism around genitals, which I don't think was the intention. However, it does smack of a cishet guy being silly about sex and gender with all the tact one might expect.
I truly don't understand this coming from a successful and respected comedy writer. I also have no idea how so many fantastic performers were convinced to narrate the audiobook. Unfortunately, the dulcet tones of Night Vale's own Cecil Baldwin and intense ranting of the Bitter Buddha were enough to bring this to life.
I feel like I'm being really mean, but it feels like so very little thought or care were put into this. I'm genuinely not knocking this as a creative exercise and think things like this can be great, but that doesn't mean they should be published. I am certain of anyone without the history in the business, and connections Kutner has made any attempt to publish this they would be laughed out of the publisher's office.
I'm glad it was free on Audible and I hope all the narrators got paid.
December 29, 2023
I was trying to give this the benefit of doubt and thinking that maybe it would be better if I had read it instead of listened to the audio book, but since reading the reviews I believe it was just bad either way. The narrator performances were so awful and I only made it to the end because I was at work and wanted to limit the amount of times I touched my phone. I can’t stop thinking about how bad this sounded in my ear. It was like being stuck in a conversation with the worst person ever and they wouldn’t shut up because every time you try to chip in they come back with something even more stupid. I only maybe enjoyed the zombie part? But that could be due to me just liking zombies.
So much of this was like “ooooo look at these aliens doing bad stuff, isn’t that so stupid…oh wait, that’s what we do in real life…wow we should change our ways” 😐 so clever and interesting, no one has ever done that before.
Even if this did have better performances than whatever those were and was written more interestingly, there is this constant underlying tone of arrogance and it literally felt like every conversation with a boy I went to school with that I hated. I don’t know if that’s his fault or the book’s fault but anything that reminds me of him should be ashamed of itself.
WHY DID THE NARRATORS TALK LIKE THAT???
So much of this was like “ooooo look at these aliens doing bad stuff, isn’t that so stupid…oh wait, that’s what we do in real life…wow we should change our ways” 😐 so clever and interesting, no one has ever done that before.
Even if this did have better performances than whatever those were and was written more interestingly, there is this constant underlying tone of arrogance and it literally felt like every conversation with a boy I went to school with that I hated. I don’t know if that’s his fault or the book’s fault but anything that reminds me of him should be ashamed of itself.
WHY DID THE NARRATORS TALK LIKE THAT???
October 25, 2023
(audiobook) this was brilliant. the stories flow one out of the other really nicely, and it was hard to stop listening to them, they were very enjoyable. they were so critical! and so great!
our society in not in a good state, and, if we don't full stop and fix it, we are not heading in a better direction either...all cloaked with thick layers of sarcasm.
a flow of hilarious examples:
“it feels good to be on the right side of history”, skin colours are defined by Pantone approved shades, “and, they know why”, “humanity has agreed to live, breathe, and tan within the _agreed upon_ categories of mocha, severally burnt umber, and iffy mustard”, did he say “mantropology” (i couldn’t stop laughing), “the barren wastes of New New New (…) England”, where after years of tumult “i have earned the trust of this once proud people” who are harvesting for “the ritual intoxicant, the g&t”, they “invented civilisation” truly, i have made it to successfully integrated and now nobody will love me or give me a school degree, and what about “the alabaster child growing in my womb”, the narrator who sounds like he has the sniffles talks about “a strange virus” that has wiped out most of mankind, the ones that are left are part of the new era called “the great unfocussing”, when ADHD is a synonym for selfishness because they can only focus on personal problems, ADHD medication factories are the focus of the new terror activity, “it’s all you”, but you have no clue what you’re actually doing to this world, you just feed on it, wake up from the matrix, the world is actually disturbing and disgusting, we have invested into investigating black holes to the end of it, and now can see inside them, and have found meaning, (in) unpaired socks, deadbeat dads, unshakable love, ugly people’s phone numbers, lost weight, opinions about niche music, time, energy, causality and opportunities, we still throw parties and you’re still showing up in the world with all the wrong attitudes, the environment is radioactive, our lives revolve around pet ownership to the extent of human execution without one, the most desirable jobs people fight for are building "virtual reality for goldfish attention", "thay pet is thay religion", which, if it rimes, it’s has value even if copied fiction, people go through life like zombies but are still complaining they wish to go vegan, a decimal error shows people their real nature, science is only advanced by people looking for profit, who ask demands in the form of questions, just like your belligerent spouse, quality of experience has been reduced to “it still beats being dead”, and with immortality people understand the ones they hate will be there forever, war is a math problem and solution……who knew we end up trying to find a cure for the cure for the cure for cancer, so us, like trying to become the hipster aliens to fit in, or not understanding what skipping school means, we are easily manipulated by the tiniest of things, chasing the scientific progress of our values we forget the meaning of our past ones...
there is so much more to such a short set of stories. marvellous flow!
our society in not in a good state, and, if we don't full stop and fix it, we are not heading in a better direction either...all cloaked with thick layers of sarcasm.
a flow of hilarious examples:
“it feels good to be on the right side of history”, skin colours are defined by Pantone approved shades, “and, they know why”, “humanity has agreed to live, breathe, and tan within the _agreed upon_ categories of mocha, severally burnt umber, and iffy mustard”, did he say “mantropology” (i couldn’t stop laughing), “the barren wastes of New New New (…) England”, where after years of tumult “i have earned the trust of this once proud people” who are harvesting for “the ritual intoxicant, the g&t”, they “invented civilisation” truly, i have made it to successfully integrated and now nobody will love me or give me a school degree, and what about “the alabaster child growing in my womb”, the narrator who sounds like he has the sniffles talks about “a strange virus” that has wiped out most of mankind, the ones that are left are part of the new era called “the great unfocussing”, when ADHD is a synonym for selfishness because they can only focus on personal problems, ADHD medication factories are the focus of the new terror activity, “it’s all you”, but you have no clue what you’re actually doing to this world, you just feed on it, wake up from the matrix, the world is actually disturbing and disgusting, we have invested into investigating black holes to the end of it, and now can see inside them, and have found meaning, (in) unpaired socks, deadbeat dads, unshakable love, ugly people’s phone numbers, lost weight, opinions about niche music, time, energy, causality and opportunities, we still throw parties and you’re still showing up in the world with all the wrong attitudes, the environment is radioactive, our lives revolve around pet ownership to the extent of human execution without one, the most desirable jobs people fight for are building "virtual reality for goldfish attention", "thay pet is thay religion", which, if it rimes, it’s has value even if copied fiction, people go through life like zombies but are still complaining they wish to go vegan, a decimal error shows people their real nature, science is only advanced by people looking for profit, who ask demands in the form of questions, just like your belligerent spouse, quality of experience has been reduced to “it still beats being dead”, and with immortality people understand the ones they hate will be there forever, war is a math problem and solution……who knew we end up trying to find a cure for the cure for the cure for cancer, so us, like trying to become the hipster aliens to fit in, or not understanding what skipping school means, we are easily manipulated by the tiniest of things, chasing the scientific progress of our values we forget the meaning of our past ones...
there is so much more to such a short set of stories. marvellous flow!
May 16, 2021
Eyerolls: 40
Laughs: 0
It's setting quite the bar to compare yourself to David Eagleman's Sum in the introduction, and the comparison, aside from format, is utterly unwarranted. Sum is brilliant and simple at once. This book, 50 brief stories 'extrapolating' possible futures. What it really is aligns more with Dave Barry one-sentence jokes spun out to several minutes, with the mostly inoffensive sensibilities of a Saturday Evening Post dulling any sense of humor (but still managing to age poorly, especially the one about Israel/Palestine). Some of the concepts are creative, but even they manage to go on too long (even in a book that lasted an hour as an audiobook), and a couple others were nigh on incomprehensible. The round robin of readers helps for the most part (and the only reason I picked this up was because I saw Emo Phillips was one of the narrators), but the content isn't rich enough to allow the readers to bring anything to it. While there are one or two interesting ideas, the presentation doesn't justify them, and I'd say even the hour I spent on it could have been better used elsewhere. Not recommended.
Laughs: 0
It's setting quite the bar to compare yourself to David Eagleman's Sum in the introduction, and the comparison, aside from format, is utterly unwarranted. Sum is brilliant and simple at once. This book, 50 brief stories 'extrapolating' possible futures. What it really is aligns more with Dave Barry one-sentence jokes spun out to several minutes, with the mostly inoffensive sensibilities of a Saturday Evening Post dulling any sense of humor (but still managing to age poorly, especially the one about Israel/Palestine). Some of the concepts are creative, but even they manage to go on too long (even in a book that lasted an hour as an audiobook), and a couple others were nigh on incomprehensible. The round robin of readers helps for the most part (and the only reason I picked this up was because I saw Emo Phillips was one of the narrators), but the content isn't rich enough to allow the readers to bring anything to it. While there are one or two interesting ideas, the presentation doesn't justify them, and I'd say even the hour I spent on it could have been better used elsewhere. Not recommended.
May 3, 2019
While some of the ideas were interesting, some of them were downright offensive. Handled in the hands of a better author, may not have been, but a poor attempt at humor clearly directed at those not in these people groups (including trans people, Israelis, Palestinians, women) falls utterly flat. Some of these ideas clearly needed more thought, fleshing out, or simply an editor saying “hey, alienating half of the sci-fi fans might not be a great idea, maybe scrap the “everyone is trans and it’s a burden, Palestinians dancing a traditionally Jewish dance because “they can’t help it/ women being more upset by chocolate being gone than by rape and violence”. Again. Some of the ideas were interesting, but the distasteful ness of some of these purported futures literally soured this book as I listened.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 18, 2023
The reason Kilgore Trout is the best character in Kurt Vonnegut is that he gives an excuse for the author to describe some sci-fi plots. Sometimes you only want the summary to catch the idea he's trying to get across and you don't necessarily want to spend hours reading hundred of pages to get it. This has dozens. It's great.
December 4, 2024
A short book with interesting musings of a bit far out things that could happen. A couple of them are about climate change. One about the disappearance of chocolate or the cure for cancer. Take it as what it is, short stories. I listened to the audiobook which on Audible will occasionally go free.
March 1, 2018
Fun
Fun bit of sci-fi nonsense. A very quick read.
I needed 11 more words, but couldn't think of any more.
Fun bit of sci-fi nonsense. A very quick read.
I needed 11 more words, but couldn't think of any more.
December 7, 2020
👀
It was an interesting concept but not well executed
I have no more words.
😶
It was an interesting concept but not well executed
I have no more words.
😶
September 2, 2021
If I hadn’t listened to the audiobook, I wouldn’t have enjoyed this at all. Some of the stories are cute, but some are outright bad. The cast of narrators made this more palatable, to be sure.
September 26, 2021
Entertaining.
June 9, 2023
3.5 stars - a collection of dystopian stories. I enjoyed this one ☺️
October 7, 2016
Freaking hilarious!
A bit reminiscent of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Perfect for those of us with short attention spans. I would love to see some of these scenarios fleshed out more... If the author doesn't plan on adding more, it's totally asking for fanfiction.
A bit reminiscent of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Perfect for those of us with short attention spans. I would love to see some of these scenarios fleshed out more... If the author doesn't plan on adding more, it's totally asking for fanfiction.
November 25, 2011
This is a perfect example of why I love Kindle Singles. Sometimes I want to read something that's not a novel or novella, not a short story, not even a short-short. It's thirty vignettes speculating (quite hilariously) on the the state of the future. I don't think there was a single one that missed the mark or felt flat and unfunny.
My favorites were "The Sizable Bang" and "Two-state Solution."
My favorites were "The Sizable Bang" and "Two-state Solution."
November 18, 2016
Postcards from the edge... Of tomorrow
This would make a really good bathroom book. Not because it's bad and could be used for toilet paper. This is an eBook anyway and I imagine the screen wouldn't do much. This is a book that can be read piecemeal. Each chapter is a vignette of an (im)possible scenario of life here on earth and other places. Witty and fun, irreverent and cheeky.
This would make a really good bathroom book. Not because it's bad and could be used for toilet paper. This is an eBook anyway and I imagine the screen wouldn't do much. This is a book that can be read piecemeal. Each chapter is a vignette of an (im)possible scenario of life here on earth and other places. Witty and fun, irreverent and cheeky.
October 8, 2014
A quick and fun read, and short enough to leave you wanting more. These couple dozen pithy vignettes depict possible futures, and each one is clearly written and edited to maximize the wit. Clever twists, wordplay, and knowing winks all add to the enjoyment. I could easily turn back to page one and start over again, and I look forward to more from this author.
September 21, 2021
A collection of microfiction. There were a few standouts, mostly pretty good, and all so short that they were refreshing concepts. The thing I didn't like was one of the narrators had a very hard to understand lisp or something, but otherwise the collection and narration was nice. I wish flash or microfiction were more widespread.
September 5, 2015
Pretty funny. It went too fast. A little too wordy for my taste...
A lot shorter than I expected. Some of the future ideas had me rolling with laughter. Others I just didn't get. Meh.
A lot shorter than I expected. Some of the future ideas had me rolling with laughter. Others I just didn't get. Meh.
July 22, 2011
I enjoyed this book on so many levels, irony is one of my favorite concepts an Kurtner is grandmaster. A wonderfully written history of the future.
July 22, 2012
I especially like the end with lots of nano bots and stuff.
August 10, 2011
what a joyful read - very cleverly written with irony and humour.
August 17, 2011
A fun and quick read.
September 26, 2011
Funny stuff from Kutner as always.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews