What awaits our children and grandchildren half a century hence? Will their America be a paradise of plenty - a crime and pollution-free high-tech Eden? Or will the greed and shortsighted excess of our present time beget misery and despair - dooming future generations for centuries to come?These are the questions posed to four of our most respected and prescient speculators on the future-possible - the award-winning giants in the field of science fiction: Ben Bova, Frederik Pohl, Jerry Pournelle, and Charles Sheffield. Basing his projections on current technological, scientific, environmental and biomedical forecasts, each author offers a unique, startling and eminently probable overview of tomorrow - and then brings his posited world to remarkable life in a related masterwork of short fiction.From the utopian to the dystopian - from the guardedly optimistic to the pessimistically hopeful - here are four radically different, yet equally viable visions of the near-future.Stroll with an aimless vagabond through Frederik Pohl's terrifying Third World America - and into a rich man's impossible dream of space flight. Get a taste of the good life from Charles Sheffield - while learning the tragically high cost of civilization. Experience the grim realities of day-to-day living in Ben Bova's crumbling city of disposable people - and take a grand tour through "Higher Education"...with reservations.A dream, a nightmare...or a combination of the two, the future will be whatever we make of it. And now you hold that future in your hands. Read Less