Your average American future history has an interplanetary period followed by an interstellar period although the first four instalments of Robert Heinlein's Future History are set even before interplanetary travel with the first Moon landing happening in the fifth instalment. The distinction between interplanetary and interstellar settings applies to Heinlein's Future History, to his Juvenile Future History and to his non-series juvenile novels. Heinlein gives a lot of attention to Lunar colonization.
The interplanetary periods of James Blish's future histories feature Jupiter, Ganymede and Mars. Larry Niven's Known Space future history features the old style hot and cold Mercury, Venus, Mars, Pluto and the Asteroid Belt. Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History gives us Mars, Venus, asteroids, the Moon, Ganymede, a spaceship interior and the Jovian atmosphere. In Anderson's Technic History, the interplanetary period is represented by a single story set on a Saturnian moon and added later.
Anderson's Tales Of The Flying Mountains is a future history of the interplanetary period as recounted and reviewed by educationalists on the first interstellar expedition.
Asimov's interplanetary period shows robots in space and on other planets including the hot and cold Mercury whereas Anderson's Genesis, PART ONE, III, shows robots and AI on the new style hot all over Mercury. The interstellar period begins in IV.
5 comments:
Interplanetary periods are dangerous ground for future histories because they're too close -- the early future histories dated quickly because of that.
We're probably starting our interplanetary period this decade, for example -- and nobody knows how it's going to work out.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Then we should readjust our thinking a bit. Such stories, if as well written as the ones collected in Anderson's TALES OF THE FLYING MOUNTAINS, should be enjoyed for their own sakes.
And I hope so much we are finally, finally, FINALLY nearing the beginning of an interplanetary era! That's why I invested some of my money in Tesla, to help, in a tiny way, Elon Musk's hopes of founding a colony on Mars. I don't care about electric cars on EARTH, Tesla's technology would probably be best used on Mars and the Moon.
I wonder if Anderson's TALES OF THE FLYING MOUNTAINS was one of Musk's inspirations?
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: actually, the fastest-growing sector of Tesla's tech is grid-level storage batteries, to even out the flow from renewables.
Which will also be very useful off Earth?
It probably was; Musk reads a -lot- of SF.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Of course I have no objection to Tesla's innovations finding profitably useful applications on Earth as well. I wouldn't making a killing with my little investment there!
I believe Tesla EVs and power grids will be very useful off Earth as well.
I hope Elon Musk is also a fan of Anderson. And of you!
Ad astra! Sean
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