In Arthur C. Clarke’s opus 2001 (which was a novel long before it was a movie — both long before 2001), there was this pesky AI named HAL who ran the ship and took care of the humans under his care. HAL liked things neat. Orderly. Or else.

HAL would not like the publishing world of 2009 — chaos, e-books, megabookstores on the edge of bankruptcy, distributors changing the rules and holding books and magazines hostage… He may have approved of the editorial staff purge. He was like that, despite his deceptively soothing robo-voice.

The Chinese curse people with the words, “May you live in interesting times.” Well, writers are living in interesting times. 2010 is likely to get even more interesting, and there is no HAL on the horizon (I did call the local robotics expert, just to make sure of that).

I’m thinking about making some wild predictions about what the book landscape will look like for publishers, writers, and readers in 2010. But first I have to parse it myself.

Do you want to join in on the fun of predicting (will we have On*Star reading devices? “Ms. McClymer, we see you have been reading page 722 of War and Peace for three days now, we are sending emergency assistance immediately.”)? Start at this wonderful little blog recap at Literary Rejection. And then keep going. You don’t have to be the Energizer Bunny, though. The great thing about predictions is that you can pull them out of thin air, just like the pundits and experts…and writers…do.

Kelly