2025

What year would you pick when writing a science fiction story set in the future? Many writers want a relatively recognizable world, so they only go 30-50 years forward.

As a result, we've been passing the dates of 70s/80s/90s-era sci-fi futures consistently for a while: 2015 had Back to the Future Part 2, 2019 had Bladerunner and Akira, 2022 saw Soylent Green, and the year 2024 was the site of Harlan Ellison's post-nuclear A Boy and His Dog, the opening of Octavia Butler’s classic Parable of the Sower, and that one 1995 Star Trek: Deep Space Nine two-parter set in San Francisco.

2025 marks a sturdy quarter of a century – Surely that's a popular year for sci-fi stories.

Here at 70s Sci-Fi Art HQ, we believe that everything becomes a nail when all you have is a hammer, so here's a list of all the retro science fiction art that's related to or set in 2025.

Probably the most 2025 of them all is the 1985 copaganda novel NYPD 2025, by Hal Stryker. It's the only one to get the "2025" right there in the title! Here's the cover, so you can see for yourself:

Granted, that John Berkey artwork is more beautiful without the typography. And, judging from this review, it's also the best part of the book.

Second place goes to the 1982 first edition of The Running Man, written by Stephen King as Richard Bachman, and it's impressive tagline.

Here's a better version of the artwork, which is by Don Brautigam.

Chris Moore did the cover art for the UK edition a year later, with a shortened version of the same tagline.

In third place is the final big sci-fi novel set in 2025: Thomas M. Disch's 334, published in 1972. My favorite cover is the Tony Roberts artwork for the 1974 edition: Simple and focused, with limited color and a reliance on shadows.

The title is both a direct reference to the address of the housing project where the characters live in their dystopian New York City, and an allusion to the year 334 AD that's designed to compare the fall of Rome with the state of the US in the far-off future 2025.

From what I skimmed, it's a grounded novel without any spaceships, so the Tony Roberts cover probably isn't a great representation. Here are a few other options.

I've seen this Tony Roberts illustration floating around with the title "America 2025," dated to 1975.

However, I wasn't able to find confirmation that the painting ever actually had a title referencing the year 2025. Instead, it looks like it was used as the 1976 cover to New Writings in SF 25, by Kenneth Bulmer. I believe that's the 25th title in a series, so perhaps that "25" was mistranslated by the internet as a reference to the year 2025.

The 2025 calendar year repeats the same pattern as 1975 and 1986, which means that any old calendars from those years will be reusable! I tracked down a few options.

Here's Science Fiction Monthly's 1975 calendar, complete with Ray Feibush artwork.

For a more upbeat, corny, and high-res option, you'll want the 1975 Marvel Comics calendar – the company's first of seven calendars. Here's the January page, but you can get scans of the whole thing over here.

Finally, let's not forget the best 2025 prediction.

I made this YouTube playlist of anything even tangentally related to Columbocore a while back... the first video is the best one, you should at least check it out. I'm still hoping this genre takes off like Hit Em did.

Next Time: Portals