Read the Seed

When I got to college I read science fiction for 4 years. I read "1984" and "Brave New World", and both of these books are telling the news. How is that possible. Where the seeds of all this, there at the time of the authors, such that they could know how the seed was going to sprout.

It is a fun metaphor to follow. You think of someone looking at a seed and taking a guess as to what is going to happen when planted. Can someone predict the seeds growth?