Science fiction creates its whimsical magic by imagining new worlds, or sometimes even new universes, for readers to lose themselves in. But what if the best inspiration we can get for writing about the future comes from our past?
A lot of works, especially those of Orwell, aren’t just painting the portrait of a skewed society, they are showing how that society might spring from our own. It’s meant to bring put contemporary society and the fictional society next to each other, and let the reader compare them.
io9 explores the ways in which classic literature can inform modern science fiction.
