Watch Sci-Fi With Care: Gwyneth Jones

A mineral with the properties of kryponite? A computer that gauges your mood and adjusts itself appropriately? Digital eyeballs more powerful and flexible than your own? The award-winning novelist Gwyneth Jones, who sci-fi loving teens know better as Ann Halam, muses about science fiction's evolution into science fact in an interesting piece:

The robot maid and butler of classic sci-fi may be a few years off, but nobody regards them as daft make-believe any more ... [T]his is the way the future happens to us: the novel gadget makes a ripple, the thrilling announcement gains a small headline, then softly, softly, while we're not paying attention, the reality moves in and changes our moral codes, changes our very ideas about free will, responsibility, privacy, even what makes us human.

The thrust of Jones' essay: the gear imagined by best futurist writers and filmmakers today -- no matter how far fetched these inventions may seem -- may come to dominate our lives tomorrow. So read, watch and get ready! With any luck, a Daryl Hannah fembot will soon be locking her legs around your neck!