Sunday, 17 December 2017

The ERBian Dimension

When we discuss the works of Poul Anderson and of related authors, new portals continually open onto vast vistas of unexplored territory - or onto texts read once decades ago which therefore seem new now.

A passage in Poul Anderson's "House Rule" (see here) reminded me of ERB's The Moon Men, Chapter I, because the latter contains a first person account of an Arctic adventure initially involving Eskimos. However, ERB's narrator had not had a forced landing.

The Moon Men was published in 1925;

Chapter I is set in 1969;

its opening paragraph refers to the "...close of the Great War..." (p. 7) in 1967;

Chapter II begins:

"I was born in the Teivos of Chicago on January 1st, 2100..."
-Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Moon Men (New York, Ace Books, undated), p. 18.

Thus, ERB, like several more recent authors, wrote a future history series:

Heinlein's Future History Volumes I and II cover the period from 1951 to 2000 whereas Volume III is Revolt In 2100;

in James Blish's Chronology of Cities In Flight, 2105 was an agreed arbitrary date for the Fall of the West;

in the Chronology of Anderson's Psychotechnic History, the Solar Union is founded in 2105.

Future histories unfailingly fascinate.

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