The future is now, and we are not impressed. The future 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. Our beloved scientists may be building the future, but some key pieces are missing. Where are the ray guns, the flying cars, and the hoverboards that we expected? We can’t wait another minute for the future to arrive. The time has come to hold the golden age of science fiction accountable for its fantastic promises.

At the turn of the nineteenth century, visionaries like Jules Verne and H. G. Wells spun wild tales of spaceflight and underwater adventure. In 1926, Hugo Gernsback introduced the first magazine devoted entirely to science fiction, Amazing Stories, with the motto “Extravagant Fiction Today: Cold Fact Tomorrow.” By midcentury, the Apollo moon missions were gasoline on the flames. As science conquered nature, an optimistic populace yearned to live in the perfect tomorrow. Yet today zeppelins the size of ocean liners do not hover over fully enclosed skyscraper cities. Shiny robot servants do not cook breakfast for colonists on the moon. Worst of all, sleek titanium jetpacks are not ready and waiting on showroom floors.

Every vivid drawing on the cover of a pulp sci-fi magazine was a promise of a better tomorrow, and the purpose of this book is to deliver on those promises. This book ruthlessly exposes technology, spotlighting existing prototypes and revealing 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. When the technology of yesterday’s tomorrow does not yet exist, you will learn what barriers stand in the way of making it real. Be careful, you are holding a hand-sized powder keg of information.

Let’s face it, there are myriad ways in which futuristic technology could cause personal injury, societal instability, or explosive decompression. A person would have to be crazier than a trainload of monkeys to want to unleash all this technology at once. Nevertheless, this book solemnly pledges to completely ignore any potentially catastrophic consequences of worldwide technology adoption. If the technology is possible — even remotely so — this book will lay it out for all to see.

Despite every World’s Fair prediction, every futuristic ride at Disneyland, and the advertisements on the last page of every comic book ever written, we are not living in a techno-Utopia. Not yet. Now is the time to stop wishing, to stand up, and to shout, “Where the hell is my jetpack!?”