It is possible to write at an interface. James Blish's Fallen Star features a character who claims to be a Martian and ends with an epilogue referring to an expedition currently en route to Mars.
Poul Anderson's The Boat Of A Million Years spans historical fiction, contemporary fiction and futuristic sf but really is sf throughout because the various periods are united by a band of mutant immortals.
One of the many things that Anderson could have done would have been to develop this fruitful overlap area of contemporary fiction and sf further.
13 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
The situation suggested in your first paragraph should have happened decades ago! We should have had bases and colonies on the Moon and Mars 25 years ago.
It's probable Anderson seldom set many of his stories in our times because there was so much in them he did not like or approve. As can be seen in the 20th century portions of THE BOAT OF A MILLION YEARS. Considering how well he did those parts of BOAT, Anderson could have written entire novels set in our times.
Strictly speaking he did, with the Yamamura mystery novels. But those three books, set in the late 1950's, beginning the '60's, were pub. so long ago by now that they have become period pieces.
Ad astra! Sean
I think Poul was feeling a bit rushed in his later books. BOAT OF A MILLION YEARS could have been a series, and a very good one, IMHO. Just the glimpses we get of the lives of the characters have immense potential!
Sean,
There can now be a historical novel referring to the first Moon landing!
And a retro/alternative history novel referring to Cavor and Bedford.
Paul.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!
Mr. Stirling: I think I can see what you mean, at least about BOAT. And at least one part of that book was pub. separately, as a short story, "The Comrade." About Hanno tracking down another accidental immortal in the fourth century Roman Empire. So I can see thinking it a good idea if Anderson had expanded the stories in BOAT into two or three books.
I do have one criticism of BOAT. A powerful US Senator from Massachusetts named Edmund Moriarty had become seriously IRKED by the disguised Hanno's conservative and libertarian views pub. in a small magazine called THE CHART ROOM. Moriarty hired an expert private investigator to find out about "Tannahill" (aka Hanno). And enough was discovered to convince Moriarty that something really ODD was going on with "Tannahill." But Anderson never really completed that part of BOAT in a very satisfactory way, telling us how Moriarty was thwarted.
The conflict between Moriarty and Tannahill/Hanno could have easily
become a book in its own right. I quickly realized "Edmund Moriarty" had to be the late Senator Edward Kennedy, whose left wing views and ideas I too have loathed. In his letter to me to my own discussing BOAT, Anderson admitted Moriarty was based on Kennedy, a politician he had NO use for.
But I did not get any impression of Anderson being "rushed" in his major 1990's work, the four HARVEST OF STARS books. In fact I recall him writing in a prefatory note that the second and third volumes sprang from ideas and concepts first seen in HARVEST OF STARS, but better developed in separate books. So Anderson did not try to cram the first three volumes into one. And that was very fortunate!
Paul: We even get a glimpse of a retro-Wells in "Time Patrol," where mention was made of a writer who had to be H.G. WElls!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
The reference to Wells (unnamed) is in THERE WILL BE TIME.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Dang! I remember that now! I could have sworn, tho, I saw an allusion to Wells in "Time Patrol." I must have confused the reference we did get about Sherlock Holmes to Wells.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I think so. Holmes in "Time Patrol" and Wells in THERE WILL BE TIME. However, I did point out somewhere on the blog that Anderson meets Mainwethering in London in 1894 and THE TIME MACHINE was published in 1895 so those dates are pretty close.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Then it's possible those DATES in "Time Patrol" stuck in my mind as being very Wellsian dates! Albeit, I'm still chagrined at overlooking how it was in THERE WILL BE TIME that Wells was alluded to.
Ad astra! Sean
There's also been a tendency to drop future histories with a focus on the near future because they're always wrong, sometimes embarrassingly so. That's why I don't do it.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I used to think the Earth of CONQUISTADOR was set in our timeline, till you told us you made it slightly different from ours, so it would become an alternate world. That difference being the SURVIVAL of the Rolfe name and lineage, not it's fairly quick extinction in the 17th century.
Now, I have to keep an eye open the next time I read DRAKON, for some detail you changed. I've been wondering if DRAKON at least was set on OUR Earth.
Ad astra! Sean
Nope. It's a very similar alternate history.
DRAKON has some subtle differences about the course of events in South-East Asia in the 1960's, if you look closely.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Drat! I was kinda hoping DRAKON was set in OUR timeline! Hmmm, subtle differences in the course of events during the Indochinese wars of the 1960's differing from ours? Thanks for the hint!
Ad astra! Sean
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