Two Roles Of Future History Series

Isaac Asimov's future history shows us three levels of behind-the-scenes manipulators of civilizations whereas Poul Andesron's Technic History merely shows us civilizations. We get a real sense of life and society on Earth, Hermes, Avalon, Aeneas, Dennitza and Merseia and witness the rise, fall, rise, fall and rise of human interstellar civilizations and the participation of Wodenites, Cynthians and many other species in Technic civilization. I do not really want to get into how Daneel Olivaw and other immortal telepathic robots manipulate the planetary organism, Gaia, which manipulates the Second Foundation which manipulates the Foundation Federation but might be threatened by reclusive Solarians and unknown extra-galactics.

Somebody said that Asimov was alright as long as he stayed with robots. Indeed, Asimov ingeniously deduced every possible consequence of his Laws of Robotics. By contrast, Anderson wrote well about everything, including one story about a redundant robot in his Psychotechnic History. This highlights two different roles of future history series:

the broad sweep of history, with successive generations living in successive periods;

a common background for the re-examination of familiar sfnal ideas.

In some early Psychotechnic History episodes, Anderson reassessed:

Heinleinian Ideas

longevity/immortality (Future History, Volume IV)

generation ship (Vol. V)

Asimovian Ideas

robots (I, Robot etc)

a predictive science of society (Foundation etc)

Combined

the application of a predictive science of society to the crew of a generation ship

Other Psychotechnic History themes are:

recovery from nuclear war

the attempt to build a utopian society

interplanetary colonization

faster than light interstellar travel

interstellar and Galactic civilization

non-humanoid aliens

mental powers