Flying Mountains

In Larry Niven's and Jerry Pournelle's The Mote In God's Eye (London, 1959), an asteroid is described as a "...flying mountain." (p. 159) This evokes yet another Poul Anderson future history, although not one of the sequence of seven: Tales Of The Flying Mountains.

In ...Mountains, as in James Blish's Cities In Flight future history, space technology is based on control of gravity although in this case such technology facilitates asteroidal colonization but does not lead to an FTL drive.

I identified six future historical themes:

(i) near future technological advances and social changes;
(ii) a period of interplanetary travel;
(iii) an FTL drive;
(iv) extrasolar colonization;
(v) interstellar imperialism;
(vi) the rise and fall of civilizations -

- while acknowledging that not every future history addresses all of these themes. In fact, ...Mountains can alternatively be summarized as follows:

(i) and (ii) as above;
(iii) an STL drive;
(iv) the first extrasolar colonists still in flight.

...Mountains focuses on (ii) the interplanetary period and thus parallels:

Heinlein's The Green Hills Of Earth;
Asimov's I, Robot;
Blish's They Shall Have Stars;
Niven's Lucas Garner/Gil the Arm stories.

Anderson's other future histories also diverge from the (i)-(vi) model by omitting (iii) FTL and (v) interstellar imperialism.

The Green Of Earth And Home

Let us follow a chain of associations through the works of Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, James Blish and Poul Anderson.

"We pray for one last landing
"On the globe that gave us birth;
"Let us rest our eyes on fleecy skies
"And the cool, green hills of Earth."
-Robert Heinlein, The Green Hills of Earth (London, 1967), p. 141.

Asimov: a story called "Mother Earth."

Blish: a novel called Earthman, Come Home and, in another work, sister planets called "Home" and "Rathe."

"...Homelike splashes of green."
-Poul Anderson, Young Flandry (New York, 2010), p. 273.

"...a longing seized her for the cool green hills of home."
-Poul Anderson, For Love And Glory (New York, 2003), p. 178.

I propose the Terrestrial tricolor:

blue for the oceans;
white for clouds;
green for life.

Further, alternative human traditions could be celebrated by an optional symbol in the lower corner of the green band. I favor a red star but expect blog readers to have other ideas.

"...Earth!"

"Man, but it was a long time since he'd been on Earth!"
-Poul Anderson, Cold Victory (New York, 1982), p. 119.

Anderson's character does not mention "The Green Hills of Earth" but could have done especially since this phrase was not original with Heinlein. The song is mentioned in a much later "high frontier" story by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. That story is in our future so its characters could have been quoting Heinlein.

The interplanetary period of Anderson's Psychotechnic History is like the "Green Hills of Earth" period of Heinlein's Future History transposed to a nearby timeline. Both fictitious histories have:

hard sf treatment of interplanetary flight;
Luna City;
a future Revolution on Earth;
an oppressive colonial regime overthrown on Venus;
colonized asteroids;
the peace guarded by monopolized nuclear weapons (the Patrol/the Guard);
an interstellar generation ship;
psychodynamics;
longevity;
off-stage Martians;
a later period of faster than light interstellar travel.

Heinlein, implausibly, has several other intelligent species within the Solar System but keeps them also off-stage so that the main impression generated is that of a realistic account of near future space travel by human beings. He sets several of his stories in Luna City, giving the future a daily life, as someone said, whereas Anderson concentrates more on the political conflicts leading to the Humanist Revolution and its aftermath.

The Early Years Of Two Future Histories

Thank you all for hundreds of page views despite few posts. It is getting too near Christmas for regular posts. I have also had to cancel some other regular activities.

Poul Anderson's The Infinite Voyage has arrived but meanwhile I have got back into rereading some early instalments of Anderson's Psychotechnic History. In Heinlein's Future History, the first four stories are set before space travel. In the Psychotechnic History, just the opening story, "Marius," is. Heinlein's first four stories show technological advances affecting familiar American society whereas "Marius" instead describes European partisans rebuilding among the ruins after World War III, but helped by automation.

In both Histories, Mars is both inhabited and colonized from Earth. Mars is a dry planet and this affects place names. Rhysling, the Blind Singer of the Spaceways:

"...holed up with the prospectors and archaeologists at How Far? for a month or so, and could probably have stayed forever in exchange for his songs and his accordion playing. But spacemen die if they stay in one place; he hooked a crawler over to Drywater again and thence to Marsopolis.
"The capital was well into its boom..."
-Robert Heinlein, "The Green Hills Of Earth" IN Heinlein, The Green Hills Of Earth (London, 1967), pp. 131-141 AT p. 135.

"Barney Rosenberg drove along a dim, rutted trail toward the sheer loom of the escarpment. Around its corner lay Drygulch."
-Poul Anderson, "Un-Man" IN Anderson, The Psychotechnic League (New York, 1981) pp. 31-129 AT p. 39.

Heinlein's History has the "Crazy Years" (The Man Who Sold The Moon, p. 7) between 1951 and the Strike of '66, also the "False Dawn" (ibid.), 1960-70, and the first rocket to the Moon in 1978, whereas the Psychotechnic History has Puritan fanatics emigrating to Mars during the Years of Madness.

"The Green Hills Of Earth" anticipates the freshness of an early age of interplanetary travel whereas Anderson, writing later, seems to be more familiar with space travel - even though it still remains a merely fictional concept.

Bigger Than Heinlein...

In Robert Heinlein's Future History, the song "The Green Hills of Earth" expresses spacemen's nostalgia for their home planet as they travel further into the Solar System. The reference to terrestrial green is doubly poignant because the song is, fictitiously, written and sung by a man who was blinded by radiation in space: Jetman Rhysling, the Blind Singer of the Spaceways, not exactly a new Homer or Milton but the herald of a new age nevertheless.

In a later future history, a different timeline and another planetary system, Dominic Flandry visits a planet where vegetation is mostly blue but where he nevertheless sees:

"...the unexpected and stingingly Homelike splashes of green." (1)

Rereading this passage reminded me sharply how far we have come from the single short story about Rhysling in the early period of the original Future History to the long series about Flandry in the later period of Poul Anderson's mature future history.

In the Future History, interplanetary economic oppression in "Logic of Empire" was followed by American religious dictatorship in "If This Goes On -." In Anderson's Technic History, interstellar economic oppression in "Lodestar" and Mirkheim was followed by social collapse in "The Star Plunderer," then by interstellar imperialism in several stories and novels. Thus, Anderson continued the Heinleinian tradition but in a longer series and on a vaster spatiotemporal scale.

In Heinlein's History, successful revolution against religious dictatorship was followed by resumption of interplanetary travel in a prosperous post-revolutionary society but the first mature culture did not emerge until after a further crisis involving an interstellar round trip and the prolongation of human life. In the Technic History, the Fall of the Empire was followed by chaos, then by restoration of civilization and, later, a new form of interstellar organization that might have transcended crises and wars.

Thereafter, Heinlein's lengthy novels, whether in or out of his Future History, degenerated into long, turgid conversational passages that are not to be recommended whereas Anderson blazed new trails in long speculative novels presenting new visions of possible futures. Thus, Anderson followed but surpassed Heinlein.

(1) Anderson, Poul, A Circus Of Hells, London, 1978, p. 85.