Agreed. Themes like his are common in current science fiction, and I have had the same thought you have. God is not going to let many of those things come to pass. Which has made me wonder if we aren't far away from some of those "advancements" perhaps we aren't far away from the end times, or the beginning of the end times either.
Actually, what is going on in the world today is what makes me think the end times is near; not just because of fulfilled prophecy, but there is only so much that can continue without God putting a stop to it. Much as I like science fiction, I begin to see that all those old stories about the future just aren't going to work. The technology we have with the moral decay we are experiencing pretty much insures self-destruction without intervention of some kind, IMO. I wonder what genetic engineering might have to do with some of the things described in Revelation.