Seeking fiction set in 2020
November 26, 2019 12:25 PM Subscribe
I'm interesting in reading fiction set in 2020 in 2020. Help me find more!
I think it would be cool to read fiction (books/comics/short stories/etc.) set in 2020, in 2020. I am a medical librarian at a liberal arts university, so this means I have little knowledge of patterns of literature organization and description, but access to a wide variety of databases intended for use by students studying literature. I've been able to determine that catalogs don't really state "the date in which a book is set." I've found a short list on Wikipedia; I've used some advanced Google tools to search the text of pages in wikipedia and goodreads and gutenberg.org for words like ("plot OR story OR setting" AND (2020 OR twenty-twenty)). I guess I could expand to read things set in 2020-2029, too. I only read English, but translated things are A-OK!
How else can I find these items? Do you know of a website that has plot descriptions for a large number of books? A database or source that lists setting dates for novels? Ways to search databases of literary criticism or reviews for setting dates for novels? Other ideas for how to look or places to crowdsource?
I think it would be cool to read fiction (books/comics/short stories/etc.) set in 2020, in 2020. I am a medical librarian at a liberal arts university, so this means I have little knowledge of patterns of literature organization and description, but access to a wide variety of databases intended for use by students studying literature. I've been able to determine that catalogs don't really state "the date in which a book is set." I've found a short list on Wikipedia; I've used some advanced Google tools to search the text of pages in wikipedia and goodreads and gutenberg.org for words like ("plot OR story OR setting" AND (2020 OR twenty-twenty)). I guess I could expand to read things set in 2020-2029, too. I only read English, but translated things are A-OK!
How else can I find these items? Do you know of a website that has plot descriptions for a large number of books? A database or source that lists setting dates for novels? Ways to search databases of literary criticism or reviews for setting dates for novels? Other ideas for how to look or places to crowdsource?
Super Sad True Love Story was published in 2010 and set in the near future, but the year is not specified. You could easily call it 2020.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 12:53 PM on November 26, 2019
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 12:53 PM on November 26, 2019
I tried this Google search [site:goodreads.com "set in 2020"] and it came up with a bunch of results. Might be worth sifting through. I tried to find a list of books someone had already compiled but so many of their results were books published in 2020 that it wasn't fruitful.
posted by msbutah at 1:59 PM on November 26, 2019
posted by msbutah at 1:59 PM on November 26, 2019
Searching WorldCat for English language fiction with a keyword of "2020" returns about 5000 results. Granted, a lot of them are going to have "2020" in the title, which may be a bit on the nose, but if nothing else it gives you some titles to apply to madcaptenor's search method
posted by mumkin at 1:59 PM on November 26, 2019
posted by mumkin at 1:59 PM on November 26, 2019
(Ugh, it looks like WorldCat treats publication date as a keyword. That's really not helping so much, sorry)
posted by mumkin at 2:03 PM on November 26, 2019
posted by mumkin at 2:03 PM on November 26, 2019
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was originally set in 1992, but after Blade Runner came out, subsequent editions of the novel were changed to be set in 2021 (to be closer to the movie's 2019 setting).
If you've been looking at the Wikipedia list for just fiction set in 2020, this larger list has fiction set in the 21st century in general, broken out by setting year.
posted by bassooner at 2:18 PM on November 26, 2019 [1 favorite]
If you've been looking at the Wikipedia list for just fiction set in 2020, this larger list has fiction set in the 21st century in general, broken out by setting year.
posted by bassooner at 2:18 PM on November 26, 2019 [1 favorite]
This isn't a how to find other books answer, but someone recently mentioned A Change in the Weather to me. It's set in 2028.
Also, I've seen fanfiction set in the 2020s that specifies its year; you could potentially look at fanfiction tags or ask in fanfiction communities.
posted by paduasoy at 2:21 PM on November 26, 2019 [2 favorites]
Also, I've seen fanfiction set in the 2020s that specifies its year; you could potentially look at fanfiction tags or ask in fanfiction communities.
posted by paduasoy at 2:21 PM on November 26, 2019 [2 favorites]
I would also search things like Publishers Weekly, which has an archive back to the 1870s, with a set of piped text strings like "set in 2020"|"in the year 2020". Likewise, LRB, NYRB, New York Times book review archives, etc.
This is a Libguide about book review archives. This won't pull all of them out, as not every review will mention the year a book is set (and many may be ambiguous), but is at least a good first step.
You can also do a text-mining dive into Amazon product reviews, only pulling the book review data, and then stripping most of the useless fields, then searching within the raw text of the reviews themselves. It's formatted for use with Python and Json.
I'll keep looking around, and also encourage other people thinking about their replies to read the actual question, because telling someone to go to Wikipedia after they say they've been to Wikipedia does imply that you're not actually giving a useful answer.
posted by klangklangston at 4:23 PM on November 26, 2019
This is a Libguide about book review archives. This won't pull all of them out, as not every review will mention the year a book is set (and many may be ambiguous), but is at least a good first step.
You can also do a text-mining dive into Amazon product reviews, only pulling the book review data, and then stripping most of the useless fields, then searching within the raw text of the reviews themselves. It's formatted for use with Python and Json.
I'll keep looking around, and also encourage other people thinking about their replies to read the actual question, because telling someone to go to Wikipedia after they say they've been to Wikipedia does imply that you're not actually giving a useful answer.
posted by klangklangston at 4:23 PM on November 26, 2019
Ralph Peters is a right wing nutjob, but The War in 2020 is probably his "best" book (for some version of "best.")
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:14 PM on November 26, 2019
posted by snuffleupagus at 5:14 PM on November 26, 2019
This thread is closed to new comments.
This list definitely should exist. (Honestly, I'd want it searchable by two variables - when the book was written as when as well it was set. 2015's version of 2020 will be a lot different than 1920's.)
posted by madcaptenor at 12:33 PM on November 26, 2019