(FORTUNE Magazine) – Squinting into his crystal ball, futurist Adrian Berry envisions a revenge of the nerds: They--not politicians --will henceforth shape history. Berry suggests that's actually nothing new, since nerds have in fact always held sway. Consider the Hundred Years' War. Historians have long struggled to explain why the English routed the French at first and later lost. But to Berry, a science writer for Britain's Daily Telegraph, it's obvious. The English used superior yew longbows in the beginning of the war. Then in the 15th century the French started using cannons, and the Brits were toast.

So it will go over The Next 500 Years: Life in the Coming Millennium (W.H. Freeman & Co., $22.95), Berry says. Forget sociopolitical or economic cycles; the nerds and their technological innovations will steer our course, making us both rich and contented citizens of deep space.

Before forging into his glorious future, Berry defends his flanks against naysayers. The first wave to be trotted out and mowed down are, surprisingly, science and technology experts. In a delicious chapter, he reels off a list of faulty forecasts by people who really should have known better. Nobel Prize-winner Ernest Rutherford declared the idea of nuclear power was "moonshine." In 1943, IBM founder Thomas J. Watson predicted "there is a world market for about five computers." In 1961, Federal Communications Commissioner T.A.M. Craven opined, "There is practically no chance" that space satellites would improve telephone or TV services.

Similarly, most economists and social experts have failed to notice an overwhelming long-term trend toward increasing prosperity--almost a law of nature to Berry. People want to better themselves, he says, and technology lets them do it, creating wealth faster than disasters can destroy it. Look how GDPs have shot up in this century despite two world wars and the Depression.

Only the cream of science fiction writers, such as Arthur C. Clarke, are capable of true augury, says Berry--who's written two sci-fi novels himself. Quoting Clarke, he notes that "a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

After such words, we expect glimpses of spellbinding sorcery by our great-to-the-nth-power grandchildren. But many of Berry's visions are recycled from 1950s sci-fi movies--you know, where Captain Varg looks up from his slide rule and barks, "That asteroid shouldn't be there. Man the atomic ray guns."

Tourism will burgeon in outer space, Berry writes, beginning with "orbiting Hiltons" capable of housing thousands who need to get away for the weekend. Outdoor enthusiasts will spend their vacations hiking and playing volleyball on the moon. Colonists on Mars will eat lentils grown under big domes, supplemented with "tinned meat from Earth," as they gradually transform the red planet into home, replete with forests and breathable air. They will divide their years into 24 months with names like Vrisha and Ali--that's important, since "romantic-sounding month names...will persuade many would-be immigrants that there is something extraordinary, even magical, about living on Mars."

By 2500, there will mainly be two kinds of workers: Those who mine asteroids and those who boss computers around. Governments will shrivel because space miners won't pay taxes--out in deep space, they'll just thumb their noses at Earth's revenuers. Old folks will prefer living on the moon because of its low gravity. Space art, "one of the most important forms of painting today," will flourish as landscape artists set up their easels on distant planetoids.

BERRY gives short shrift to how we will get from here to there, or why we'd even want to. Space, despite its breathtaking views, is a bleak abyss. Weightlessness nauseates many people. Building even a small space station to study questions such as how to cure space nausea would cost as much as several regional wars--and suck money from more important research. Berry posits that the profit motive will eventually get us Out There. But his commercial schemes are farcical. Example: Companies will spend billions building love hotels on the moon so that couples can experience sex at low gravity.

He has relatively little to say about sublunary advances, such as biomedical discoveries and ever smarter computers. He mentions downloading people's minds into robots--effectively conferring immortality--but gives no hint of how the brain's immensely intricate electrical flows could be tapped without disruption. For some reason he believes artificial intelligence will spring from "genetic algorithms," a solution that has been looking for problems since the 1950s with only minor practical successes.

Aspiring star warriors and aging Trekkies may get a blast from Berry's rosy fixation on the final frontier. And he's probably right that technology will overshadow social trends. But don't expect many surprises from his future-magic show--most of the rabbits he's pulling out of his hat are old dogs.