Absolutely. I re-read the series a few years ago and it felt like Chaykin was writing this while travelling back and forth through time, or something. Ironically, though, the Mall has become a central concept in a certain type of "Western-style society", but online shopping has inexorably eroded this centrality. Anyway, I am relatively sure that someone wrote a book or a quite detailed chapter in a book about Chaykin's amazingly accurate "vision of the future". I will sooner or later find the reference, promised
Personally, I also somehow believe that Data East creators had some access to the series, as some of their 1990s games have ideas reminiscent of AF! (
Nitro Ball above else). I will squib about these topics in the future, so stay tuned and spread the love
"The only desire the Culture could not satisfy from within itself was one common to both the descendants of its original human stock and the machines [...]: the urge not to feel useless."
I.M. Banks, "Consider Phlebas" (1988: 43).