Predicting what the world is going to be like in 25 years has a lot more to do with science fiction than science. So we figured, who better to help us visualize this special, flip issue of the future than Bruce Sterling? He wrote such classic novels as Heavy Weather and Islands in the Net, as well as the recently published Zeitgeist. Sterling is one of the founding fathers of the cyberpunk movement, a literary trend that reinvigorated science-fiction writing in the mid- 1980s.

Our idea for this special section was simple: instead of collecting the usual essays from futurists about how life will be 25 years from now, we wanted to take our readers there, as if it really were January 2026. We also turned this vision into a first-of-its kind broadband magazine. (Come to timedigital.com for details.) Sterling, who is working on a nonfiction book about future life, was only too happy to be the guest editor for the project: "Time Digital is a friendly, unpretentious, approachable magazine that would completely shatter people's grip on reality if a time traveler took it back to 1975," he says.

Download TIME Digital, Special Issue, January/February 2026 A.D.

Download the pretty version of the whole issue. (PDFs)

Visit TIME Digital 2026 Official Website

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