Edited by Alisa Krasnostein and Ben Payne


Where will the world be in four years' time?

Eleven of Australia's top authors take a guess in 2012. Each story imagines the world as it might be, presenting unique possibilities for the very near future. There are dark visions of water and oil shortages, terrorism, climate change, global and regional politics, the limiting of personal freedoms such as free speech, struggles with the ethics of genetic engineering and bioengineering, alien conspiracies, and the impact of technology on industry. There are personal stories here too – of the way these things might impact on families, and how we at an individual level might react to the catastrophes predicted to lie ahead.

Each of these stories presents an original take on the imminent future of humanity. Each has something to say about who we are and who we might want to be. 2012 is both a call to imagine the future of the world and a call to create it.

Deborah Biancotti
Martin Livings
Dirk Flinthart
David Conyers
Simon Brown
Lucy Sussex
Tansy Rayner Roberts
Kaaron Warren
Angela Slatter
Ben Peek
Sean McMullen

Available March 2008.