When rereading Poul Anderson's "Un-Man," I feel very strongly that we are following in the footsteps of HG Wells' Time Traveler. Why? Future history and time travel are two different sf themes. Time travel can be about:
history, e.g., Anderson's Time Patrol series;
elaborate temporal paradoxes, e.g., Robert Heinlein's "By His Bootstraps";
the future, e.g., Wells' The Time Machine or Anderson's There Will Be Time.
However, when time travel fiction is about the future, it does connect with future histories. Wells' character does not just travel to 802,701 A.D. and further. He deduces what has happened regarding two social issues, man versus nature and bourgeoisie versus proletariat, between 1895 and 802,701. In "Un-Man," Anderson reflects on these issues:
technology;
technological unemployment;
social dissatisfactions;
resources from the ocean and planets;
etc.
The Un-Men are successors of the Time Traveler.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Anderson handled such issues better than Wells did with his simplistic Morlocks versus the Eloi.
Ad astra! Sean
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