Heinlein never wrote a story about that strike but didn't need to. These three references serve their purpose. There was technological progress but also social turmoil during the second half of the twentieth century. This strike was just one of the many conflicts that occurred in that period and it is also one of the several events that help to unify the History. That is sufficient. In Britain, we refer to the General Strike and to the Great Miners' Strike. Heinlein's citizens of the future have their equivalents.
It is good to spend some time again in that Future History written so long ago and also to reflect that Anderson's Technic History far surpasses Heinlein's series in both length and complexity. As yet, I have not tired of summarizing sequences, sub-series and interconnections in the Technic History although this generates a certain amount of repetition on the blog. Tomorrow, we will return to young Falkayn's predicament on Ivanhoe.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
My sense of disenchantment and dissatisfaction with Heinlein's later works, beginning with STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND, should not make me forget how much better his pre-STRANGER books were. Not all of these were meant for younger readers. DOUBLE STAR, SIXTH COLUMN, and THE PUPPET MASTERS were "adult" science fiction stories very much worth reading.
Sean
Poul had the advantage of constructing his future histories after Heinlein. For one thing, he was careful not to get too specific about the immediate future -- particularly in the Technic History, which was his second serious venture into the art.
(If you get specific about the next few decades after the story is written, you date fast. SF authors are terrible at predicting the immediate future, just like everyone else and for the same reasons: a) it's impossible, and b) it's doubly impossible because your own emotions are involved and shut down your capacity for rational thought in ways you're not even conscious of.
I get around this problem by never using the "real" present to write in -- it's always, if you look carefully, an alternate present, an alternate history.
Eg., in "Conquistador", it looks very much like our present or near-future, but if you notice some of the details, it isn't. There's a Rolfe family in Virginia (the Pocahontas/Rolfe line did survive, but not in the male line bearing that surname) and there are other differences in 20th century history.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
I agree with your comments about how Poul Anderson constructed his Technic History series. And the wisdom about not getting too detailed speculating about the near future.
Yes, I recall how you explained that the Earth/1 of CONQUISTADOR is not our Earth, which I admit to rather regretting. I have to keep that in mind the next time I read DRAKON, because the Earth Gwen Ingolfsson ends up in sure looks a lot like our Earth.
Sean
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