Examples:
Heinlein's Future History, then Anderson's Psychotechnic History;
Heinlein's Magic, Inc., then Anderson's Operation Chaos.
Sf is a debate. One sf writer presents both an idea and an implication of that idea. A second writer replies with an alternative implication of that same idea. In the Psychotechnic History, Anderson presents:
an unemployed robot;
a dead end immortality;
the application of a predictive social science (Asimov) to the population of an interstellar "generation ship" (Heinlein).
By the time we read Anderson's Time Patrol series, we were already familiar with the idea that time travelers might accidentally or deliberately change history.
These reflections were prompted by the mention of three interstellar "Falls" in the previous post.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Your remark about the "three Falls" discussed in your immediately previous blog piece reminded me of how I had made no mention of Asimov's Galactic Empire and the Foundations. That was largely because the dissatisfaction I came to have for Asimov's SF makes it too easy for me to overlook his work, when it really should not have. His Empire/Foundation stories do have ideas in them which are deserving of being examined, after all.
Sean
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