Robert Heinlein's Future History;
Poul Anderson's Twilight World;
Anderson's Psychotechnic History.
Twilight World (1961) incorporates:
"Tomorrow's Children" (1947);
"Chain of Logic." (1947)
The earliest published Psychotechnic History chronology (1955) apparently included "Entity." (1949)
The Future History begins with Heinlein's first published story, "Life-Line," (1939) and also incorporates one other story published in 1939 and six published in 1940.
Thus, to generalize, early stories get into future histories although maybe "Entity" does not really belong? One connection is that a character flies with a gravitic impellor, as in "Teucan." (1954)
"Life-Line," about Pinero who accurately predicts dates of death, does not seem to fit because Pinero is murdered and his apparatus destroyed so how does this story connect with the rest of the Future History? It does because Methuselah's Children discloses that the apparently deathless Lazarus Long had consulted Pinero - who gave him no reading and returned his fee.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
That makes Lazarus Long reminiscent of Edgar Rice Burroughs Warlord of Mars, John Carter, who was also apparently deathless. And, oddly, with no memories of having had childhood.
Ad astra! Sean
A SF author's stories often have a generic similarity in terms of tropes that makes it possible to "retrofit" them into a future history.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
That is true, and you did that yourself with your two Lords of Creation books! And you had Kipling's stories set in British India in mind while writing THE PESHAWAR LANCERS.
Ad astra! Sean
Pete Pinto, who used to run an sf bookshop and who had a DISCWORLD book dedicated to him, thought that maybe Anderson's THE WINTER OF THE WORLD fitted into the far future of the Technic History or maybe it was just that Anderson got into a particular way of writing about fictional futures.
Kaor, Paul!
I remember that idea as well. That Anderson's THE WINTER OF THE WORLD was far in the future of the Technic timeline after the Empire fell. We (and, I think David Birr as well) discussed that suggestion in this blog. I think the general consensus was that was not the case, that WINTER belonged to a separate timeline.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I reread THE WINTER..., looking for internal evidence of any connection with the Technic History but didn't find any.
David seems to have dropped out of the discussion, unfortunately.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I agree, as regards THE WINTER OF THE WORLD. No connection to the Technic timeline.
Yes, David has been "gone" too long a time. I hope nothing bad happened to him.
Ad astra! Sean
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