Creative Futures

Inspirational and thought-provoking collection of short stories imagining future crises and solutions, uniting the spheres of creative storytelling and real-life resilience building.
We’re going to change the world.
Science Fiction writers spend their lives thinking about what will happen in the future. In this anthology, a select group bring imaginative thinking to the challenges the world will face in the next century.
This anthology is a collection of works that draw inspiration from the Creative Futures Research Project, a partnership between Coventry University and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), the UK Ministry of Defence’s science and technology organisation. The writers involved in the project created stories that imagined some of the future crises that we may have to resolve and the ramifications of our choices on the generations who come after us.
Edited by author, lecturer and researcher Allen Stroud, who had a leading role in the research project, this anthology not only entertains and inspires, but also reminds us of the immense value of the imagination and creativity of science fiction writers in helping us plan for future crisis management and resilience.
The full list of featured authors in this book is: Allen Stroud, Gavin Smith, Kieran Currie Rones, Stewart Hotston, Emma Newman, Stephen Oram, Tiffani Angus, Adrian Tchaikovesky, Adeola Eze, Gareth L. Powell, Stark Holborn, and Sophia McDougall.

Allen Stroud is a lecturer and researcher at Coventry University. Stroud completed a Ph. D. at the University of Winchester entitled 'An Investigation and Application of Writing Structures and World Development Techniques in Science Fiction and Fantasy'. He has worked in computer games, roleplaying games, novels, short stories and scripts. He currently runs the Creative Futures research project with the Defence Science Technology Laboratory (DSTL).
Stroud was a founding host of Lave Radio, an Elite: Dangerous fan podcast that started in February 2013 and ran the annual convention Lavecon. His novel set in the Elite: Dangerous game world, called Elite: Lave Revolution was successfully funded on Kickstarter and published in late 2014, with a second edition published in 2015. Stroud then supported Spidermind Games in developing the Elite Dangerous Roleplaying Game. Stroud worked on Chaos Reborn with Snapshot Games and has worked on Phoenix Point, released in 2019.
Stroud was the 2017, 2018 and 2021 chair of Fantasycon, the annual convention of the British Fantasy Society, which hosts the British Fantasy Awards. In June 2019, he became Chair of the British Science Fiction Association, taking over from Donna Bond. Stroud continues to write academic papers, reviews, articles and fiction in science fiction, fantasy and horror. He lives in a messy house with three cats and his partner, Karen.