I’m excited to share a project that has been in the works for years. Future World 2323 started with one of the the novels I wrote during the pandemic Notes from Nowhere in which I put a man of our time into a world three centuries hence. In 2022, in E.R. Donaldson’s Mythic. Winter anthology, I expanded the world with The Texican Blizzard. It was at this point that E.R. and I started talking about creating an anthology where other writers could help define this world. We brought that idea into what is now the Baoism Discord. Now, in 2025 – here is the result from those seeds. I’m so proud of the team that came together to build this and the writers who joined us and stayed the course. Without further ado:
FUTURE WORLD 2323 7 Astounding Stories from a strange and increasingly realistic future.
A world both strange and recognizable. Future World 2323 is set in a far-distant version of Earth torn from political upheaval, catastrophic geological shifts, and the fallout of nuclear war. Global superpowers have been fragmented, and their borders redrawn. Smaller nation-states have banded together (or been conquered) to establish greater security against the political titans of the era. In this world, humanity has developed advanced technology previously unfathomable, associated with extraterrestrial intelligences, and unlocked ancient mysteries and powers long forgotten. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/erdonaldson/future-world-2323
The truth is that in all of my work, whether it is speculative or philosophical, I try to bring about a better world for all of us. This book is no different. I tried to focus on the Rox (positive things) that I think make life better for everyone. One aspect of that is collaborative creation and cooperation. This project began with me writing a book (Notes from Nowhere) that detailed a future society that fit the mold of what I think we as humans can be. I put a man from our time into a democratic confederalist utopia set in Hawaii three hundred years from now. Hawaii though is a very small part of the world and realistically, I don’t think that all of humanity will be united in harmony in three centuries, as much as I would love to see that.
So the rest of the world was different. Different countries, different ideologies, different governance systems. The world is too big for me to define alone so I reached out to my fellow writers and asked if they would like to write stories about different parts of the future world. Five other writers answered the call.
A lot of this future history is mapped out by me in Notes from Nowhere . Hawaii and the nations of the Pacific form a kind of decentralized government. The United States after a second Trump administration and conversion to sort of religious dictatorship called the Republican States of America fractures – Texas and Mexico unite to form the Texican Nation. The West Coast of North America seceded and bands together from Alaska to British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, Baja – they become one nation – The Bear and Salmon Republic. E.R Donaldson details the Great Lakes region becoming the Wolverine Isles, Rionna Morgan writes about how Ireland is saved by Witchcraft, Ameera Rashid writes about how a major technology reshapes the Middle East, and our friend Quanta goes into a liminal space as a race of humans that live between worlds begins to interact with humanity. There is a lot going on in Future World 2323. You may recognize some of those author’s names as people who shared their belief systems on the Baoism Substack in videos with the Baoist Community.
We decided to publish this book with a kickstarter campaign – it fit the goal of community we started with. Our goal was modest. We want the individual authors to be paid for their work and to earn enough to pay for printing and distribution to the backers of the campaign. We are defining a world collaboratively and attempting to publish cooperatively. All of this is an experiment that breaks away from a world of domination and exploitation. We are also trying to break away from the tyranny of the traditional publishing system. The only gatekeepers here are the readers.
And as for the messages in the book – well – if you want to see Elon Musk transformed into a lunatic cyborg trying to become an immortal god, you can read about it in this book (or just watch the news). If you want to see what the future of the United States under a sort of Trumpian Papacy looks like – same thing. If you want to explore Artificial Intelligence and the possibility of love between human and AI, it’s here. So are spiritual journeys and lessons, romance, and so much more.
I’d really like this book to make it into as many hands as possible. Not just so people can read our work, but so people can come engage with us about it, collaborate with us, and maybe even expand on it themselves. We want to break down the walls between readers and writers. We need your help and cooperation for that to happen. If you can share our project with your networks – that would be wonderful. If you want to back our project and get an early copy of the book – that would also be wonderful. There are just a few days left in the campaign and we’d really love to hit it out of the park and get it into the hands of as many readers as possible.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/erdonaldson/future-world-2323
We are excited about the future! Please join us in making it happen!
~CD
