Scan of 1979 book of the future
The Pointless Museum has a complete scan of The Usborne Book of the Future: A Trip in Time to the Year 2000 and Beyond (1979), by Kenneth Gatland and David Jefferis.
A Boing Boing reader says: "The Usborne Book of the Future was a beautifully optimistic look at the future, from the 1970s. See the robots, machines and cities of the future, and then travel to the stars." Link
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http://www.pointlessmuseum.com/museum/usbornebookofthefuture042.php
I always found that contrast to be particularly poignant.
At first glance I read The Pointess Museum as the Pointless Museum.
I think I need to up my prozac.
Wow! That was a flash of unexpected recognition.I had that book when I was a little kid. I wore it out! I wonder what happened to it.
I had another book that had a similar format, but it was like a military history book from the future that had spaceship paintings along with the history of their use in various interstellar conflicts. I have no idea what it was called or who did it, but the style of the art was very similar.
Wonderful! I still have my copy, I loved that book so much as a kid.
I now find the spoon bending and kirlian photography bit hilarious, though at the time Uri Geller was taken seriously. Ooo, automatic navigators for cars by 1990!
Gah! Now I see the Pointess Museum as the Pointless Museum. Must dial back the prozac!
Wow... I remember checking this (and some other books like it, same publisher I think) out from the local library over and over again. The Daedalus pages really stuck in my head. I now head to Google to see if this proposal has been carried forward in any fashion.
This was the future I grew up with.
I now find the spoon bending and kirlian photography bit hilarious, though at the time Uri Geller was taken seriously
Yes, Usborne published a number of rather weird "non-fiction" books for children in the 1970s. I had the one about ghosts -- it was very similar to the future one with lots of pretty pictures. The thing is, reading it, a kid would think that ghosts were a perfectly normal research subject and being a paranormal investigator was as a normal an occupation as being a paleontologist or something.
@#3 VIBROTRONICA
Terran Trade Authority Handbook
Great Space Battles
by Stewart Cowley and Charles Herridge
It's out there, still.
I'm seeing the cowboy picture again. While this is hilarious, I'm sure it's also a mistake.
Still: AWESOME.
Yes, that's it! Thank you, scientiaobscura.
I had this book as a kid too. My favorite page was the guy stuck in the desert, summoning help with his Dick Tracy-type wrist phone-thingee. I thought it was the coolest and couldn't wait until I could get mine one day.
http://www.pointlessmuseum.com/museum/usbornebookofthefuture048.php
Now it's 2008 and I finally got a BlackBerry smart phone for work. Looking back at the picture of the guy in the desert, I now notice the caption right above it:
If you were late to an appointment, it would be easy to let the other people know. The risto doubles as a watch too, continuously corrected by a time pulse from the satellite overhead. There would be few excuses for being late!
Doh.
Also: they forgot to mention that the risto can download video of skateboarding dogs from YouTube.
I had another book that had a similar format, but it was like a military history book from the future that had spaceship paintings along with the history of their use in various interstellar conflicts. I have no idea what it was called or who did it, but the style of the art was very similar.
Was it by perhaps Star Quest? (cover picture: http://www.pointlessmuseum.com/star%20quest.png )
I could scan that in, if you want? (It might take a while, though, as I think my scanner is on the verge of dying
Hey, I had this book! I also had ones that I'm pretty sure were from the same publishers, one on ghosts, one on Space Travel, and one on UFOs and aliens. I probably still have at least one of them somewhere around here, although I'd have to dig around to find it.
That's odd, I can't seem to spot any of our future evil robot overlords in that image....
Wow- thank you. I have been looking for this book forever. Pretty sure my mom got rid of it after I went to college. Pgs 38 and 39 had me believing in global warming from a very young age.
I think this book hit me at my Golden Age for science fiction.
That being the age of 12.
I also had this book, perhaps my mum still has it. I was telling a friend about the big screen TV in the book a few weeks ago. And now we have such things.
I had forgotten about this book that I saw 26 years ago.
This explains everything.