Asimov Book Review - Futuredays: A Nineteenth-Century Vision of the Year 2000

By Lacey Kat
(Copywrite by Author - All Rights Reserved)


Science Fiction, as once described by Isaac Asimov, is a look at how technology affects society.  How changes in applied science will change the people who use it.  As this is a sort of prediction of things to come, and as sometimes the author gets things right, Science Fiction writers are sometimes called “Futurists.”

Asimov often bristled at this title and enjoyed bringing up his 1953 short story "Everest."  In that tale, Asimov predicted that the tall mountain would never be climbed.  Unfortunately for him, the story was published two months after Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay stood upon Everest’s highest point.  Every time he was asked to discuss the future of man, Asimov used this example of what an expert “futurist” he was.

This, of course, never stopped the press from seeking Asimov out when questions about the time to come were asked.  There is an uncertainty about tomorrow that worries the intellectual animal, and anything we get to hedge our bets is welcome.  We read the horoscopes, pick up the “look ahead” editions of popular news magazines, and watch the “World of Tomorrow” programs on “The Learning Channel and YouTube.”

Of course, this is not a recent phenomenon.  What makes modern man different from the ancient Greeks, who went to the Oracles of Delphi for a look into the future, is the idea that “science” is a more legitimate predictor of human events than the past soothsayers were.  This despite the fact that time has often shown them no more accurate.

Which brings me to the book to be reviewed.

In 1899, a French commercial artist, by the name of Jean Mare Cote’, was commissioned to produce a set of “cigarette cards” that would show life a hundred years in the future.  The pace of science and technology was sufficiently fast enough, by this time, that people thought they could reasonably see what the future would hold.  The turn of the century is also a strong time to think about the future.   Unfortunately, Jean Mare Cote’s prognostication abilities did not see that the company that
commissioned him would go out of business and his whole project would be for naught.  In 1978, Christopher Hyde came across the only pristine set of these cards still in existence and he brought them to America.   Isaac Asimov was contacted to write his reflections on Cote’s illustrative predictions of life in our present, his future, and “Futuredays: A Nineteenth-Century Vision of the Year 2000,” was created.

The drawings are all very colorful and look at life in the “far” future with a touch of French whimsy that movie genius Georges Melies would commit to film a few years later.    It is apparent to the reader that the artist was more of a Liberal Arts major than a scientist by training.  Some of his “predictions” are hopelessly impractical and would have been easy to see even in the 1900s.  However, other ideas are only mildly off actual inventions we use today.   For example, the first colour card shows a rescue at sea using the not yet invented “aero plane.”  Air-sea rescue is now a well-established event, but Cote’ envisioned only a glider with an engine,  not very much more advanced than the gliders of the 1890s.  Another card, however, depicts the use of “helicopters” as platforms for observation and does so with remarkable accuracy.  The first helicopter was not built until 1940 yet many of its features were anticipated in Cote’s drawings.

While not a scientist, Jean Marc Cote’ was a commercial artist and understood that you must produce what your public will want to see.  His scenes of days yet to come are filled with activities of super science.  We see people hunting, and wearing personal flying machines on their backs.  We see people attending races, and playing croquet, all underwater, yet fashionably dressed.  In addition, we see the floors swept and the dishes cleaned, all by machines with wheels, wires, and small mechanical hands, watched over by the maid of course.  The future will be wonderful, and we can understand it.   There is even a scene of two women at a restaurant talking to other people on Viso-phones.    Not that that would ever happen today.

Along with each card is a paragraph or two by Isaac Asimov explaining why the idea depicted was presented and why it is flawed.  Asimov also presents a very interesting introductory essay on Futurism, and why it is so important that we know what is to come.

It is a pleasant book and interesting for its view of our present from another time.  My only problem is that Asimov seems to take the subject far too seriously.  These were not drawings commissioned by MIT and intended for governmental policy commissions.  They were intended to be cigarette cards viewed by ladies and gentlemen of means who still viewed science as a new toy.  These were the 1899 version of the “Jetsons.”  The idea of airplanes (All prop by the way.  No jets envisioned), slightly larger than bicycles, delivering mail to each home was as foolish as the idea of watching fish races, underwater, while wearing calf-length gowns.  It was whimsy and Asimov did not seem to notice this.
Another thing that Asimov failed to comment on was the lasting impact of Cote’s ideas on popular culture of the next century.  In 1930, David Butler made a cute little musical film set fifty years into the future (1980) called “Just Imagine.”  In the opening scenes, he had 200-story skyscrapers and rows of aircraft flying at different levels.  At an intersection, in a hovering bucket, was a traffic cop directing the air traffic.  This is not unlike the “Aviation Police” on the card presented on page 40 of “Futuredays.”  Page 64 shows automatic Barbers and mechanical Tailors taking care of customers with little human intervention.  All the ideas that were presented, in jest on the Jetsons, sixty years later.  Many of Cote’s notions of the future were held long into the 20th Century.  Asimov would have done well to explain why these were such cherished visions of life yet to come.

Whether it is looking at old science fiction shows like Space 1999, or reading old science fiction novels that warn of future doom, we find comfort in how the past viewed the future.  Maybe because they always seem to miss key inventions, or give too much credit to their own work, they have always gotten the future wrong.  It makes us feel better, I believe, to see their folly because we hope it makes our current dire predictions just as inaccurate.

“Futuredays: A Nineteenth-Century Vision of the Year 2000” is still in print and an enjoyable read for the reasons I have speculated on above.  The introductory essay on futurism by Isaac Asimov has not been reprinted elsewhere and is worth the cost of the book alone.  The reflections by Asimov on each idea presented in the artwork are interesting and informative, as Asimov often is.  The chance to see another time’s vision of our lives, however light, is always an interesting reflection on the society of the time.  It helps us see how our own time reflects on our vision of the future.