A Slightly Different Perspective, Maybe

We unreflectingly think of an sf series like Poul Anderson's Captain Flandry stories as set in "the future" which, of course, it is but maybe the real situation is slightly more complicated? In the first place, we are, of course, fully aware that in no way is this our real future. No one can know whether the current Chaos will be followed by a Solar Commonwealth and a Breakup. Further, we seriously question whether some of the sf props and cliches, like faster than light interstellar spaceships, are even theoretically possible. Thus, any future history series already to some extent overlaps with that other fictional category, alternative history, even if the fictional history of the series has not yet quite overtly diverged from ours.

Secondly, no fictional narrative is set in either the past or the future as perceived by its viewpoint character(s). Everyone, whether Dominic Flandry or his readers, thinks of himself as living now, in the present. With no great stretch of the imagination, we can re-conceive Flandry's period as an alternative present. It could have been that if prehistoric events had occurred to a slightly quicker schedule by about a thousand years in a parallel universe maybe with slightly different physical laws allowing for quantum hyperspace.

In our universe, we know that, if we travel abroad, then we will encounter slightly different designs in architecture, household items etc. So imagine yourself now experiencing what Flandry does at the beginning of "Tiger By The Tail":

you wake in a metal cabin;

you can tell from background sounds that you are in a spaceship under hyperdrive;

the furnishings tell you that the crew is non-human but humanoid;

opening the door, you face a white-skinned, black-horned guard...

 

Imagine that that is our present.