Where's My Jetpack?: A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future that Never Arrived | 
| Author: Daniel H. Wilson
Creator: Richard Horne
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 108984
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 192
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.7
ISBN: 1596911360
Dewey Decimal Number: 600
EAN: 9781596911369
ASIN: 1596911360
Publication Date: April 17, 2007
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Product Description
It’s the twenty-first century and let’s be honest—things are a little disappointing. Despite every World’s Fair prediction, every futuristic ride at Disneyland, and the advertisements on the last page of every comic book, we are not living the future we were promised. By now, life was supposed to be a fully automated, atomic-powered, germ-free Utopia, a place where a grown man could wear a velvet spandex unitard and not be laughed at. Where are the ray guns, the flying cars, and the hoverboards that we expected? What happened to our promised moon colonies? Our servant robots?
In Where’s My Jetpack?, roboticist Daniel H. Wilson takes a hilarious look at the future we always imagined for ourselves. He exposes technology, spotlights existing prototypes, and reveals drawing-board plans. You will learn which technologies are already available, who made them, and where to find them. If the technology is not public, you will learn how to build, buy, or steal it. And if doesn’t yet exist, you will learn what stands in the way of making it real. With thirty entries spanning everything from teleportation to self-contained skyscraper cities, and superbly illustrated by Richard Horne (101 Things to Do Before You Die), Where’s My Jetpack? is an endlessly entertaining, one-of-a-kind look at the world that we always wanted.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
Our future could have been so much cooler July 2, 2008
So many of the inventions mentioned in this book sound like products from the Sharper Image or the SkyMall catalogs, and that's good and bad. It's good because almost everything I see in those catalogs makes me think "How cool" or "How interesting." It's bad, though, because I've never actually bought anything from either of those catalogs, and if the rest of the folks in this world are like me, they probably haven't either.
Still, Wilson's treatise on the technological future we're missing out on is not only humorous and tongue-in-cheek but factual and realistically interesting the whole way through. I had no idea that actual underwater hotels existed, or that zeppelins are mounting a resurgence as luxury airliners. I wasn't aware of cryogenics other than rumors about Walt Disney and humorous stories about 70's super spies being frozen.
While the illustrations by Richard Horne are fun and topical, it really would have been great to see pictures of the different devices and inventions about which Wilson writes. However, since this is obviously meant to be a fun, light reading type of book, the explanations and descriptions do not get too in depth, and neither do the visuals.
It's as if Wilson just wants to tease his readers into further exploration and discovery on their own. And perhaps that's the point after all: with a little curiosity and research, ordinary people can become more entrenched in the science fiction devices that will become commonplace, and exert their influence now to affect our technological future.
So, while I don't care about yelling and screaming "I want my jetpack," I will definitely be keeping a closer eye on what is available and possible and doing everything I can to make it a reality.
 Undoubtedly You've Pondered Where Are Many of These Future Technology Visions? Where's My JetPack? Gives some of the Answers! February 10, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
There are a few books out there that have mastered the format of providing answers to scientific, medical or everyday myths in an entertaining, therefore easy to read non journal/textbook sounding way. Where's my Jetpack? however is the first of these great books, that I have come across anyway which tackles the imagined future of decades ago compared to the reality of that future time of being today. Many science fiction novels, TV shows and even advertisements on the back of comic books foretold a future of gadgets, transportation, robot helpers and living environments that would make life so much easier and interesting for your average human. Who hasn't had the conversation of where are the flying cars, underwater cities and so on with their friends at some stage. Even Seinfeld had an episode where George and Jerry brought this up. Up to now though no has provided the answers to why some of these things aren't around or in fact told us that some of them are. Where's My Jetpack? is a great short, fast, informative read that will provide you with lots of information to bring up these very questions again the next time you see your friends.
I found Where's My JetPack to be really interesting. It might not go into the depth that some people want on each topic but it does provide enough info to know why something will never happen, or where the product can be found if it is already out there, if we can expect to ever see it in the future or that mankind had it but didn't want it (Smell O- Vision).
A great example of a topic covered is the whole invisible man science fiction creation which although not invented by was made popular by H.G. Wells and authors since then such as H.F. Saint. I will readily admit I have been a huge fan of the fiction novels in this genre and Wilson's information on the whole miniature cameras and image projections in the cloak actually turns something you thought would always only be fiction into something that could feasibly become reality one day. I really hope some fiction authors use this cloak method and write some good fiction with it.
Other stuff I had never even thought about was also very intriguing such as the elevator to space. I mean it makes sense when you think about it, we don't use jet propulsion to get to the 100th story of an office building so obviously this would be the safer, more cost effective way to get satellites, space station material and even people into space. I'd never even thought of that the sue companies for your own stupidity, that initially was born in the US and is now plaguing the world impacts future helpful to society inventions such as the moving sidewalk. We could right now have faster moving people movers at the airports and elsewhere right now if not for this greedy element of society.
Where's My JetPack? is a very good book, I highly recommend it. If you are after other great entertaining as well as educational reads on science also check out Great Mythconceptions: The Science Behind the Myths by Karl Kruszelnicki, Do Blue Bedsheets Bring Babies?: The Truth Behind Old Wives' Tales by Thomas Craughwell, Can You Drill a Hole Through Your Head and Survive?: 180 Fascinating Questions and Amazing Answers About Science, Health and Nature by Simon Rogers and Can a Guy Get Pregnant? : Scientific Answers to Everyday (and Not-So-Everyday) Questions by Bill Sones.
Topics covered inside Where's My JetPack? are -
The Jetpack
Zepplins (Huge Goodyear type airships)
Moving Sidewalks
Self Steering/Flying Cars
Hoverboard
Teleportation
Underwater & Space Hotels / Moon Colonies / Skyscraper Cities
Dolphin Guides / Artificial Human Gills
Holograms
Smell O Vision
Robot Pets / Servants / Smart House
Mind Reading Devices / X-Ray Specs
Anti - Sleeping Pill
Invisible Camouflage
Universal Translator
Unisex Jumpsuit
Food Pill
Ray Guns
Space Mirror / Elevator
Cryogenic Freezing
Intelligent and brilliant February 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Where's My Jetpack?" is a great book, written in a fresh and cunnig style and with an amazing design. I think it could be an interesting compedium for all the mid-50 sci-fi fans who desire to know something about those incredible inventions they read about. I really enjoyed it.
 It ended up sitting on top of the toilet tank November 3, 2007
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
It's a thin, thin book of little content. Funny? In places, but this is really a very lightweight little gift book. Someone should write a good take on the missing future, the science fiction that seemed to be near, but never showed up. Start with the "Gernsback Continuum" and go from there.
The book that asks "why not?" August 30, 2007
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
And it gives you an answer too, although not always the one you want to hear. Wilson looks at inventions that have been "just around the corner" or an accepted part of future life for decades and lays out just why they haven't come about... or at least not in the form originally envisioned. The jetpack is a perfect example: it looked like it was real, cutting-edge technology when it appeared in films and TV shows in the 1960s and 1970s, but in reality it is a dead-end technology because of noise, fuel consumption, etc. etc.
Who explains all this? No one that I know of, other than Wilson.
A good book to read at your leisure. Look for the futuristic, shiny blue book!
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