Rating: 
Summary: Good, imperfect
Review: This is a suitable summary of potential breakthroughs in science over the coming years, and how you, as a potential science fiction writer, can exploit w/ a degree of expertise that speculation for your own work. Sheffield wants you to get your science right, he wants substance to your verisimilitude, and that's a good thing.
It covers the types of rockets that are possible, where alien life is possible, new forms of energy, quantum physics, non-locality, robotics and A.I...ect.
There are some weaknesses. His explanation of Chaos Theory wasn't very helpful, and seemed unfocused. The idea of solar powered energy stations hovering in orbit (or near orbit) above the earth, beaming radiation down to earth seems a bit fanciful for an author who is trying to "keep it real". How healthy would it be for the environment if a power station beams down a nation's worth of electromagnetic radiation through clouds, the ozone layer, ect. If a butterfly's wings can cause a tsunami (re: Chaos theory), what in the world would a LASER beaming to the earth do?!? It's an attractive proposition--very attractive, quasi-free energy, but flawed, and really shouldn't pass the "hard SF" test. Also, the chapters on A.I. and robotics were a bit too short.
This is a good summary and a way to get your foot in the door to understanding these near-future topics, but to really master these topics for your writing, like Sheffield will want you to do, you'll need to dig deeper into these subjects in other sources.
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