What do you think?
A Short History of the Future: A Sci-Fi Short Story Collection
42 Sci-Fi Stories by an Award-Winning Writer
Time travel to multiverses, via aliens, pocket spaceships, teleportation mishaps, homicidal AIs, eco-disasters, and space pirates.
Includes the award-winners Ana, Tribbulations, and Re-Boot, along with stories published in Best of British Science Fiction, Nature Futures, and Analog.
What if..?The universe splits when you look under the bed?You miss a delivery, light years from anywhere?Whenever you lose an election, you sleep until the next one?You lift kisses from love letters, to mend a broken heart?something alien and impossible orbits black holes?you don't bother reading the manual for your 3D bio-printer?
Time travel to multiverses, via aliens, pocket spaceships, teleportation mishaps, homicidal AIs, eco-disasters, and space pirates.
Includes the award-winners Ana, Tribbulations, and Re-Boot, along with stories published in Best of British Science Fiction, Nature Futures, and Analog.
What if..?The universe splits when you look under the bed?You miss a delivery, light years from anywhere?Whenever you lose an election, you sleep until the next one?You lift kisses from love letters, to mend a broken heart?something alien and impossible orbits black holes?you don't bother reading the manual for your 3D bio-printer?
- GenresScience Fiction
256 pages, Paperback
Published March 6, 2025
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 24, 2025
This is a wonderful collection of short stories and very short stories, all quite different from one another apart from the fact that most are the type of traditional Science Fiction I used to read in the twentieth century. There are deliberate nods to Douglas Adams, Men In Black, Isaac Asimov, Doctor Who, The Twilight Zone, 2001, Alien, HG Wells, and other things I am familiar with, and no doubt more which I am not.
Some of the stories are funny, some scary, some moving, and some more intellectually satisfying. My favourite is White Goods, which may be because it is more like the Lit Fic short stories I usually read. It is one of the most moving, well-structured stories I’ve ever read. The Betsey is a fantastic punning shaggy dog story. Lighter Than Air is just lovely. Bob, Just Bob starts out fun and ends up really touching. The pastiches of instruction manuals and things like that are really snappy and entertaining.
This collection is great for reading from cover to cover or as a book to pick up from time to time. It would make a great commute read, toilet book, holiday read, or to keep in the car to keep you entertained every time you have to wait around for your kids to get in the car.
Some of the stories are funny, some scary, some moving, and some more intellectually satisfying. My favourite is White Goods, which may be because it is more like the Lit Fic short stories I usually read. It is one of the most moving, well-structured stories I’ve ever read. The Betsey is a fantastic punning shaggy dog story. Lighter Than Air is just lovely. Bob, Just Bob starts out fun and ends up really touching. The pastiches of instruction manuals and things like that are really snappy and entertaining.
This collection is great for reading from cover to cover or as a book to pick up from time to time. It would make a great commute read, toilet book, holiday read, or to keep in the car to keep you entertained every time you have to wait around for your kids to get in the car.
March 23, 2025
A simply magnificent set of short stories which would appeal as much to new readers of science fiction as those who have grown up with it. They are mostly all quite short - averaging 5 pages or less - but each story packs in so much imagination and scope, without being heavy handed with the science. In fact it's the people that really drive each mini story whether we're looking at unique takes on AI, black holes, first contact, interstellar travel, time travel warnings, alien scams, hostile xenomorphs or other classic Scifi ideas.
I think it's this accessibility which makes it so good. The author is clearly academic in his knowledge, yet brings it all down to Earth for the everyman. For example, (minor spoiler) one of my particular favourites revolves around time dilation from a colony ship taking two hundred years to arrive at a planet, but technology has progressed so far, they get overtaken at the halfway mark by the local delivery company who since have hyper drives. There's an additional witty ending to that story which pretty much everyone will appreciate given typical experiences with the post..
And it's that which makes it so perfect - high concept written for everyone is such a great skill to be able to demonstrate consistently. Not every story is an absolute gem, but most are really good. I've made a list of my favourite stories below and I rank this collection alongside some of my favourites written by Ray Bradbury, Greg Egan, Jendia Gammon and others at the top echelons of short story writing. This is very much science fiction doing what it once did so well - looking at a realistic future, through the eyes of the present. Fantastic stuff!
"Lighter Than Air"
"The Uploaded"
"The What-The Tree"
"Tribbulations"
"The Back up"
"The Icy Breath of Enceladus"
"Lunch Failure"
I think it's this accessibility which makes it so good. The author is clearly academic in his knowledge, yet brings it all down to Earth for the everyman. For example, (minor spoiler) one of my particular favourites revolves around time dilation from a colony ship taking two hundred years to arrive at a planet, but technology has progressed so far, they get overtaken at the halfway mark by the local delivery company who since have hyper drives. There's an additional witty ending to that story which pretty much everyone will appreciate given typical experiences with the post..
And it's that which makes it so perfect - high concept written for everyone is such a great skill to be able to demonstrate consistently. Not every story is an absolute gem, but most are really good. I've made a list of my favourite stories below and I rank this collection alongside some of my favourites written by Ray Bradbury, Greg Egan, Jendia Gammon and others at the top echelons of short story writing. This is very much science fiction doing what it once did so well - looking at a realistic future, through the eyes of the present. Fantastic stuff!
"Lighter Than Air"
"The Uploaded"
"The What-The Tree"
"Tribbulations"
"The Back up"
"The Icy Breath of Enceladus"
"Lunch Failure"
July 23, 2025
I’ve chosen this collection of sci-fi short stories as I wanted to read something short and “light” without dedicating myself to a long novel, let alone a series.
All the stories are pretty short – five to seven pages on average – which makes them an ideal read on public transport, during a lunch break, etc. There’re also one-page “drabbles” and excerpts from standalone, longer works.
Sad and funny, set on Earth and in deep space, in the far future and alternative past, told from the first, third, and even second point of view – these stories vary in their styles, plots, and topics. Although so different, they all share one thing – the genre. The author has demonstrated how diverse and versatile the sci-fi genre can be.
He draws inspiration from sci-fi classics, film directors, and pop culture in general, discussing such global and controversial topics like climate change, the evolution of AI, space exploration, etc.
A reader can easily find a nod to Stanislaw Lem, Michael Crichton, and Isaak Asimov’s works in Hogan’s stories. Some of them were inspired by Aliens, Solaris, and other sci-fi blockbusters.
Amongst all the stories, I want to highlight the following:
Lighter than Air - written from a teenager’s point of view, it deals with such serious topics as climate change, air pollution, and interaction between species.
The Betsy - a freight cargo spaceship with her crew of robots turns into pirates, thanks to bureaucracy, which still prevails on Earth even in the far future.
The “What-The” Tree is a story set in deep space, but it’s about the difficulty of making the right, very human choice.
Bob, Justbob is a bittersweet story about how aliens can be more human than some humans.
The Backup - a sad and funny story about the delivery services in the far future.
Fixed Point - a time-travel machine went wrong. A nod to Michael Crichton’s Timeline.
The Icy Breath of Enceladus - when an exploration mission gets stranded on one of Saturn's ice-covered moons, and an icy volcano erupts, the crew realises that the intelligent form of life they’ve been searching for has found them first. It’s an eerie retelling of Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris.
I highly recommend the collection to everybody who enjoys sci-fi in short form, from time travel to dystopia, from techno-thrillers to poetic drabbles – every sci-fi fan will find something for themselves in this superb anthology.
All the stories are pretty short – five to seven pages on average – which makes them an ideal read on public transport, during a lunch break, etc. There’re also one-page “drabbles” and excerpts from standalone, longer works.
Sad and funny, set on Earth and in deep space, in the far future and alternative past, told from the first, third, and even second point of view – these stories vary in their styles, plots, and topics. Although so different, they all share one thing – the genre. The author has demonstrated how diverse and versatile the sci-fi genre can be.
He draws inspiration from sci-fi classics, film directors, and pop culture in general, discussing such global and controversial topics like climate change, the evolution of AI, space exploration, etc.
A reader can easily find a nod to Stanislaw Lem, Michael Crichton, and Isaak Asimov’s works in Hogan’s stories. Some of them were inspired by Aliens, Solaris, and other sci-fi blockbusters.
Amongst all the stories, I want to highlight the following:
Lighter than Air - written from a teenager’s point of view, it deals with such serious topics as climate change, air pollution, and interaction between species.
The Betsy - a freight cargo spaceship with her crew of robots turns into pirates, thanks to bureaucracy, which still prevails on Earth even in the far future.
The “What-The” Tree is a story set in deep space, but it’s about the difficulty of making the right, very human choice.
Bob, Justbob is a bittersweet story about how aliens can be more human than some humans.
The Backup - a sad and funny story about the delivery services in the far future.
Fixed Point - a time-travel machine went wrong. A nod to Michael Crichton’s Timeline.
The Icy Breath of Enceladus - when an exploration mission gets stranded on one of Saturn's ice-covered moons, and an icy volcano erupts, the crew realises that the intelligent form of life they’ve been searching for has found them first. It’s an eerie retelling of Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris.
I highly recommend the collection to everybody who enjoys sci-fi in short form, from time travel to dystopia, from techno-thrillers to poetic drabbles – every sci-fi fan will find something for themselves in this superb anthology.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews