The Early Stuff

Summary Seventeen prescient tales of the near future: from global chaos to our obsession with celebrities, from virtual reality to the final flooding of Calcutta, from genetic engineering to the future of the Internet. A truly perceptive mind sized it all up decades before most people realized what was going down. Table of Contents Images 1 Island Vacation 13 Arm of Decision 21 The Jewelry Shop 31 Helpful Harry 39 Career Fair 51 Death Looked Down 61 Older Patterns 99 Online 109 Her Big Chance 129 Rollout! 147 Djinnetic Code 155 Job Fair 175 The Ascension of Saint Susan 187 May/December at the Mall 203 Continuing Ed 213 Falling Forward 219 About the Author 227 About the Author Brian Dana Akers grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan and spent his teenage years building telescopes, reading science fiction, and practicing Yoga. He started six years of undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Michigan in 1975, with his senior year abroad in India. His studies included Sanskrit and Indian history. Brian then left for the San Francisco Bay Area and worked as a typographer and network manager. In July of 1991—with sun, moon, and earth aligned in the Golfo de California—he met Loretta, moved to New York, and married her.