The problem with writing near-future satire is that, while you’re trying to be ridiculous, reality does it all so effortlessly. I had a side-character in BOLG & THE BEAUTIFUL – an Irish faerie, who was a trans-geographist, who had decided he was born in the wrong country, and that he identified as Italian and thence-forth demanded you accept him as that.

Then there’s zombie books. I mean, unthinking, destructive hordes are so passé these days. It’s an issue with near-future, aside from the satire. Events catch up with you, there is no flying car.

My shelves are full of them: books I read when they were just speculative, and actually – LAST STAND ON ZANZIBAR or MAKE ROOM, MAKE ROOM, to name two, where the Malthusian hell we’re supposed to already be in, has failed to materialize, and, given the falling Total Fertility Rate, seem quite unlikely.

Honestly, it has made reading these books difficult.

So: how do you future-proof your book?