NANOTECH AIN'T THE FUTURE, KIDS: It's now.

Inevitably, given the profusion of low-level sf editorial jobs I have in my work history, I still wind up talking to wannabe science fiction writers at least several times a year, and often what they're writing about comes up. Much of the time, of course, it's a tv notion of "science fiction" or even worse or more dated.

I have no problems when the phrase "I don't want to write about nanotechnology" comes up, as it does, because there are a thousand flowers to bloom in sf, and only a few of them need include nanotech. But I also still frequently hear "...and besides, I don't believe in it any way," or, far worse, "what's that?"

Now, sometimes the former refers to the more extreme extrapolations of nanotech: complete extropian stuff, or, say, getting into Greg Egan territory. That's fine, too. (Although less so when it's an excuse for "I want to write hard 'science fiction,' just so long as it's okay for me to ignore science"; fortunately, again, hard sf is not the only category on offer).

But apparently only those who really pay attention are aware just how much early nanotech is in use right now.

CMP estimates that sales of nanocomponents are around $30 million a year. But products using the microscopic materials generated sales of $26.5 billion last year, according to a recent estimate by Nanomat, a European consortium of companies and research institutions involved in nanotechnology. And the National Science Foundation, the lead agency administering nanotechnology research financed by the United States government, predicts the total will soar to $1 trillion by 2015.

It really can be useful, if you want to write science fiction, and, moreover, if you want to understand where the world will be in five, ten, fifteen, twenty, years, to do some reading about science and technology now and again. And besides, there's mind-boggling stuff all the time. There are a couple of nice early examples in this article, even long before we've gotten into von Neumann machine and Eric Drexler territory.