The questions have been asked: 'Can the future be imagined?'; 'If so, how?' The answer to the first of these is deceptively simple. It would seem to be an unequivocal 'yes'. If we take, for example, just the history of the future novel, then the fictional field is crowded with those who believe that the time to come can be imagined and, indeed, for various reasons needs to be. (1) Beginning with the first apocalyptic future novel, Le Dernier homme (1805), by the wonderfully named ...