You always hear that truth is stranger than fiction, and that’s often the case. Think about all the things that have happened in your life. If you wrote them down exactly as they happened, it might not create a cohesive narrative. Because Life is rarely, if ever, a cohesive narrative. There’s a lot more randomness and chance that goes into something than there are carefully planned out storylines. This is why we have fiction. We’re comforted by the organization of stories. We like things that make sense to us because our lives so often do not. And science fiction is just a heightened level of that. 

It explores everything that could happen if only our world were a little bit different from what it is now. But sometimes life catches up to science fiction. Think about all the technological advances that have happened over your lifetime. Arthur C Clarke and the lake probably couldn’t have envisioned that. But it’s why we keep returning to those stories. Because they help us make sense of our lives.