HG Wells' The Shape Of Things To Come was published in 1933. Its "Last War Cyclone" is 1940-'50. The Second Conference of Basra in 1978 establishes the World Council.
"Life-Line," the opening story of Robert Heinlein's Future History, was published in 1939 and is set in 1951. The first rocket to the Moon is in 1978. All of the stories involving the Lunar colony are set before 2000 and there is a world federation by that date.
"Marius," the opening story of Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History, was published in 1957 and is set in the immediate aftermath of World War III which, the Chronology informs us, occurred in 1958. In 1965, the First Conference of Rio makes the UN a world government.
Larry Niven's Known Space future history, which began publication in 1964, describes interplanetary exploration in the last quarter of the twentieth century and a UN world government in the twenty first century.
Anderson's Technic History, whose earliest written installment was published in 1951, describes interplanetary exploration in the first half of the twenty first century and the establishment of the Solar Commonwealth in the twenty second century.
Six future histories, two by Poul Anderson.
We always live in the present but that is a tautology because, by "the present," we mean the moment in which we say it. The present is the moment of experience and the interface between past and future. Future histories progress from 1930 to 2001 and beyond but are always future histories.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Until, of course, an event speculatively discussed by these writers actually occurs, in which case it becomes part of the real past.
Except for "The Saturn Game," prefaced by a quote from a fictional academic paper dated 2057, Anderson, probably wisely, preferred to avoid committing himself to any dates in his Technic timeline. But that hasn't stopped fans from trying to work out Chronologies!
I usually think of the Solar Commonwealth as arising around or soon after AD 2100.
Ad astra! Sean
Like other institutions, SF learns by experience. One thing I learned by experience (I started writing seriously in the 1980's, but I'd been reading the stuff since I was about 7 years old, in 1960) was not to be too specific about the immediate future if you were setting a story in the remote future.
Then later, I decided to make everything alternate history. If you look at my stories (CONQUISTADOR, for example) you'll find that not only is it about "overt" alternate history, people travelling 'crosstime' to a timeline where Alexander the Great lived to his 70's...
... the starting point is also an alternate history. It's very -similar- to ours, but there are indications if you look. Eg., the Rolfes of Virginia -- in OTL, that family died out in the male line.
This means the story can't "date" in the way straightforward near-future SF does. SF authors are even worse than professional futurists at predicting the future, and that's saying something.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I was a bit chagrined to find out the Earth John Rolfe VI came from in CONQUISTADOR was not OUR Earth! (Smiles)
I did think the Earth the monstrous Gwen Ingolfsson came to in DRAKON was our Earth, till you told us that if readers look carefully, they will find a few indications saying otherwise.
Ad astra! Sean
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