Commentary: Can science fiction help us prepare for 21st-century warfare?

The novelist Margaret Atwood recently caused a stir when, during an interview with Variety, she said that the 9/11 hijackers "got the idea" to fly planes into buildings from watching "Star Wars."

Atwood, the author of "The Handmaid's Tale" and other dystopian classics, did not have the facts right. The 19 hijackers were not inspired by "Star Wars." Al Qaeda wasn't reenacting the destruction of the Death Star.

But the premise of Atwood's comment was not at all