The predictive powers of sf are possibly no better than the astrological columns of the tabloid newspapers. It is perfectly clear, though, that to understand prediction it is necessary to read sf. He who cannot understand the critical standards of sf does not have the necessary standards to criticize works about the development and the potential of today.

In this first study I want to examine the successes of prediction in sf.

An article on architecture in The_Guardian recently began with this sentence:

"Science Fiction writers recurringly offer a vision of the future city where the citizen moves tidily between sleeping cubicle and work station on moving public pavements from which there can be no vague and random wanderings off" (Friday 30/3/90)

And immediately I thought of Robert Heinlein's story "The Roads Must Roll". I was hard-pressed to think of many others, although eventually one did come to me, but I think my ignorance was justified, because in the Nichols' Encyclopedia_Of_Science_Fiction it says (after mentioning the Heinlein)

"The majority of sf stories attempting to deal with social revolution brought about through transport, however, use the more direct method of matter transmission." (Transportation) Now, this could mean that there are stories about moving pavements which do not include social revolution but it is more likely that moving pavements are not a frequent subject in sf (a third author who uses them is Asimov in The_Caves_Of_Steel, I've remembered).

The author who also uses moving pavements and would seem to justify the concept of the science fiction writer seeing their significance is Mark Adlard in his Tcity trilogy (Interface, Volteface, Multiface).

They supply both an integral vision of how a future city and society would work, and an essential plot element.

I want to centre the argument for the predictive roll of sf in a study of Adlard's three novels, while referring outside them.

About two years ago I heard an item at the end of the business news on the radio - in America a new style of shoe was taking off. It was called the Mall Walker, and was a type of trainer with improved grip for the solid floors of American shopping malls. It was being sold to older Americans who passed their time in the malls both shopping and walking for exercise, sometimes forming clubs, taking benefit of the sheltered environment. Last year (1989) I actually saw American shopping catalogues offering mall walkers for sale. A shoe for shopping centre floors might seem specialisation taken to an extreme, but it is obviously a large market, and given the other details some sort of social revolution has occurred. The Grey Panthers are keeping fit while the mall owners wittingly or not have provided them with a roof to keep out the elements.

Mark Adlard's trilogy describes a vast single structure on Tyneside - housing complex, factory, shopping centre, pleasure dome. He called it Tcity when he publishe the trilogy in 1971, 1972 and 1975, it could be Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesborough all grown into one. Now on Tyneside there is the Metro Centre - "Europe's largest out of town shopping and leisure centre", with three hundred shops, special theme areas, a theme park for entertainment, cinemas, and an international choice of restaurant cuisine.

Oddly, perhaps, while the owners and promoters of the Metro Centre are keen on publicity I have never seen anything pointing out that the Metro Centre at the end of one decade seems the fulfilment of a novel plan envisaged twenty years before at the start of the previous decade.

However, escalators seem the nearest to the moving Thruways that provide the transport of Adlard's Tcity or Asimov's Caves of Steel that the Metro Centre approaches. Like so much prediction nothing seems to come to pass exactly as the predictor has written. (On the other hand I can think of complexes that have moving pavements and also have enormous shopping complexes, though that is not their purpose - both London Heathrow and Amsterdam Schipol airports manage to combine shopping with high speed ground transport, even though their purpose is to facilitate aerial flight). As soon as one force acts, another will intervene intentionally or not - who could predict that the major influence on the profits and charges of B.A.A. who run many of Britain's international airports would not be anything to do with transport or international relations or the numbers of people travelling by air, but the amount of profit that can be hidden in the cost of duty-free wine, spirits and perfume; and the ending of that business with the forth-coming single market? One person's bottle of whiskey is the viability of another's landing charges.