Saturday 28 March 2020

When Does The Future Begin? II

American
Heinlein's "Life-Line," published in 1939, is set in 1952 in an as yet unchanged world. The single new invention is destroyed although further technological advances occur in succeeding stories.

Anderson's Psychotechnic History begins in an aftermath of World War III that is indistinguishable from the aftermath of World War II but futuristic urbanization has occurred by the time of the second story.

Anderson's Technic History begins with solar, then extra-solar, exploration. The fourth and fifth stories are set on a future Earth.

James Blish's Cities In Flight begins with regular interplanetary flight and speculation about interstellar flight in the early twenty-first century.

Larry Niven's Known Space series begins with exploration of the Solar System in the concluding quarter of the twentieth century.

The Chronology of Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium future history begins with Neil Armstrong setting foot on the Moon in 1969.

Future histories have advanced since Stapledon.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And I only WISH something like Jerry Pournelle's FTL Alderson drive had been invented as early in OUR timeline as it was in the Co-Dominium universe!

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Asimov's future history begins with Robots in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

True. Iow, set more or less in our times. By and large, I think the stories collected in I, ROBOT were better than was the usually the case with Asimov. And I also liked his collection EARTH IS ROOM ENOUGH.

Ad astra! Sean