Some authors have made some predictions (预测) about what our modern life could become. Here are four books that, somehow, managed to predict the future.

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

This novel was published in 1935. It’s about a dance marathon competition. Competitors who last the longest can get prize money. It’s just like reality TV shows. In reality shows, people voluntarily do things that are physically and mentally tiring or embarrassing.

Neuromancer

William Gibson’s 1984 novel, Neuromancer, not only gave birth to the cyberpunk genre, but it also predicted cyberspace (网络空间) and the Internet. In 1984, there was already a network, but only several universities used it. Gibson predicted the rise of technological addiction and people’s need to be online.

Earth

In 1990, Brin published the novel where the story takes place in the year 2038. A black hole has fallen into the Earth’s core. Scientists have a year to fix it, or the earth may be destroyed. And Brin correctly predicted the World Wide Web (Web) that was invented a year after the book was published. In Earth, the characters don’t think they would find any Earth-like planets. In reality, we have found several Earth-like planets.

Childhood’s End

Childhood’s End is about an invasion (入侵) of Earth by aliens called the Overlords. They help advance human technology. One of those technologies they introduce is a type of virtual reality that is like a movie. The author also predicted that in the early 2000s, people might watch TV for three hours a day.

   The writer Margaret Mitchell, who wrote under the name Peggy Mitchell is best known for writing Gone with the Wind, first published in 1936.Her book and the movie based on it, tell a story of love and survival during the American Civil War. Visitors to the Margaret Mitchell House in Atlanta, Georgia, can go where she lived when she started writing the story and learn more about her life.

Our first stop at the Margaret Mitchell House is an exhibit area telling about the writer's life. She was born in Atlanta in 1900.She started writing stories when she was a child. She once worked as a reporter for The Atlanta Journal newspaper. One photograph of Ms. Mitchell shows her talking to a group of young college boys. She was only about one and a half meters tall. The young men towered over her, but she seemed very happy and sure of herself. The tour guide explains, "Now in this picture Peggy is interviewing some boys from Georgia Tech, asking them such questions as 'Would you really marry a woman who works？' And today it'd be ‘Would you marry one who doesn't work？’"

The Margaret Mitchell House is a building that once contained several apartments. Now we enter the first floor apartment where Ms. Mitchell lived with her husband, John Marsh. They made fun of the small apartment by calling it "The Dump".

Around 1926, Margaret Mitchell stopped working as a reporter and was at home healing after an injury. Her husband brought her books to read from the library. She read so many books that he bought her a typewriter and said it was time for her to write her own book. Our guide says Gone with the Wind became a huge success. Margaret Mitchell received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the book. In 1939 the film version was released. It won ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

   William Butler Yeats was born in Sandy mount，County Dublin，Ireland on June 13th，1865.His father John was a law student who later pursued art，and young William and his siblings moved back and forth between Dublin and London during much of their _________.

Most of their holidays were _________with their mother's family in Sligo，a region whose landscape，culture and folklore（民俗）_________ his own works.

While his family belonged to the main Protestant minority which _________ themselves with the British，Yeats firmly _________ himself Irish. Indeed many of his poems and plays reflect Irish legends and castles. In 1885，Yeats started _________ poems as a young man of 20.Many of his early works were later published as The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems.

He became _________ in politics，which resulted in his becoming an Irish senator（参议员）in 1922 when the Irish Free State was formed. He _________ for 6 years but continued to _________ well into his seventies.

Later in London，he also co-founded the Rhymer's Club for __________ to share their verses，with his own __________becoming popular with other poets.In1899，as Yeats began writing dramas，he established the Irish Literary Theatre __________ other like-minded people to stage Irish plays. His __________ were influenced by the Japanese Noh style of writing，a type of traditional Japanese theatre which tended to be musical rather than __________ on prose.

Yeats became __________ when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923，becoming one of the first Irish laureates（桂冠诗人）.His book The Tower was set in his own __________，which he had bought and restored. __________，many of his best works were written when he was well past 50，and they continue to be __________ today.

In 1939，Yeats died in France on a trip there. He was __________ at Roquebrune，but according to his __________，his remains were later taken to Sligo and buried at Drumcliff in 1948.