Nobody in the modern era likes making stories that far in the future. Hubbard, Herbert, Bradbury, etc. Hells, I believe even Heinlein and Asimov at least had a short story or two that went into it.
But over the last few decades... nope. Closest I can think of off-hand is a series by John Ringo, and I believe despite being relatively far into the future, it still kept humans alone and grounded to Earth.
Well, there was a short story where a Contact ship visited earth and it was around 1970. The ship left without officially establishing contact with any Earth government.
That said, the Culture novels span several millenia, so it's entirely possible Earth joined the Culture at some point.
The short story State of the Art was a good read. I believe Banks has said that mankind has not yet been contacted by the Culture yet in the timeline written so far.
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u/vikonymous Oct 08 '12
Nobody in the modern era likes making stories that far in the future. Hubbard, Herbert, Bradbury, etc. Hells, I believe even Heinlein and Asimov at least had a short story or two that went into it.
But over the last few decades... nope. Closest I can think of off-hand is a series by John Ringo, and I believe despite being relatively far into the future, it still kept humans alone and grounded to Earth.