Fiction And News

We read an installment of a future history series, then a newspaper article, but some of the same issues are addressed, e.g., should Europe, Earth or the Solar System be united? With the benefit of instantaneous communication, some of James Blish's characters federate the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds.

People living in Poul Anderson's Solar Union or Solar Commonwealth must read newspapers or their equivalent. In the Solar Union, they know that the Jovian System is a separate state but also that there is little direct contact with it. In the Solar Commonwealth, they know that Polesotechnic League companies sell many of the goods that they want but also that the League is an interstellar power defying governments limited to single planets or planetary systems.

Where is the line between the news and fiction? See "A Newspaper And A Novel" here. In my hearing, one hospital porter showed another a tabloid headline. The second man smiled in appreciation of the "story," whatever it was, then asked this crucial question, "Wha'? In real life or in t'soap?" First, he appreciated the "story" (news or fiction?), then he checked which of the two parallel narratives it belonged to.