Historical And Contemporary

For practical purposes, we distinguish between the historical and the contemporary. If a fictional work is set in 1850, then its characters are involved in the historical processes of the nineteenth century although they lack their readers' knowledge of what comes next. In the same way, we now are involved in the historical processes of the twenty first century although we lack our descendants' knowledge of what comes next.

Poul Anderson addressed our role in history by writing historical fiction and future histories. By contemplating the entire range of his works, we can locate ourselves as midway between the Roman Empire and the Terran Empire - or other possible futures. Are interstellar empires impossible? Not when reading Anderson's account. But he describes other completely different kinds of futures as well.

Modern writers have an additional problem. Writing in 2015 but setting a novel just a few years ago, e.g., in 2010, the author must ensure that he does not refer to any information and communications technology that is in use now but was not then. Thus, the historical impinges ever more closely on the contemporary.