In other words, before the appearance of many spectacular technologies, a writer imagined it first. This truth underscores one of science fiction’s abiding strengths: its ability to test concepts, both technological and social, without spending vast sums on research and development.

The editors and writers behind Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future (William Morrow, 2014) think many science fiction writers in recent years have lost their way in this regard. As evidence, they point to the proliferation of what Hieroglyph co-editor Kathryn Cramer calls “tired dystopias.” Rather than provide “cautionary tales that show us what to avoid,” she explains in her New Books interview, these novels use “dystopias as furniture”–backdrops for a plot centered on a central character’s adventures.

In contrast, Hieroglyph seeks something different. “We’re asking for a science fiction that actually addresses problems and tries to solve them,” Cramer says. “And what they [the authors of the 17 stories in Hieroglyph] thought of were the problems is almost as interesting as what they think the solutions are.”

Among the topics Cramer covers in her interview are how she overcame her initial skepticism about the Hieroglyph initiative, how she and co-editor Ed Finn selected the writers included in the volume, and how the authors worked with scientists and researchers at Arizona State University to postulate plausible technologies based on current scientific understandings.

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Here are some links related to the interview:

* Read more about Project Hieroglyph on its website.

* Hieroglyph was inspired in part by Neal Stephenson’s essay “Innovation Starvation“. It was originally published by the World Policy Institute and now serves as a preface to the collection.

* Cramer uses the term “neo-Gernsbackian,” which refers to Hugo Gernsback, who published the first science fiction magazine.