Friday 2 October 2020

Fictions And Futures

Fictional futures are diverse but also kind of parallel, at least in our imaginations. We can find similarities despite the vast differences between HG Wells' AD 802,701 and Poul Anderson's AD 2497. I could write a long list of futuristic speculations but so could any sf reader. And we imagine further works of fiction to link the existing ones despite their diversity. But, of course, sf writers have already done this. There are different ways to do it. Sometimes two originally independent series have been fitted into a single timeline, e.g.:

van Rijn and Flandry;
Robots and Foundation;
Lucas Garner and Beowulf Shaeffer;
Sherlock Holmes and the Time Patrol.
 
Usually, works of fiction by different authors remain fictions to each other, e.g.:
 
Anderson's Tom Barlow is relieved not to have emerged in an Orwellian dictatorship;
 
Wells' Star-Begotten refers to his The War Of The Worlds as a work of fiction - written by someone like Olaf Stapledon;
 
Stapledon's Last Men In London manages to be a work of fiction within itself because its author among the First Men, who imagines that he is writing fiction, distorts most of the information that he mentally receives from his Neptunian observer;
 
Anderson's Maurai future history is fiction within his There Will Be Time, again based on information received from a time traveler - while another such time traveler had given Wells the time travel idea.

8 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

But by the end of "Welcome" I suspect Barlow would find the United World Republics even worse than the dictatorship Orwell shows us in 1984.

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Though the Orwellian dictatorship is indicated to be eternal and to get steadily worse. I think the one in "Welcome" will eventually crash.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

In 1984, the Party claims that it will be eternal but we can see ways in which it can come unstuck.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor Mr. Stirling and Paul!

Both: I agree. The regimes in both stories can only SO long before sheer incompetence brings both down.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

In 1984: Incompetence. Sheer pointlessness. Denial of the external universe. Running out of resources. Not knowing how to replace them. Also, the proles are one big mass of people whose labor is necessary and who vastly outnumber the thugs at the top. The dictatorships have gained and retained power because all opposition to them has unaccountably evaporated. However, in real societies, some unpredictable and apparently trivial event can incite massive resistance to the powers that be. The authorities know that this can happen. They just do not know what will be the spark. At any time, for example, there might be interruptions to the supply of food to shops in prole districts... There is a sudden threat to everyone's physical well-being. This can lead either to a social collapse or to a massive fight-back against the Party. Either way, the regime does not survive.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I can see either a massive social collapse cascading from a small disruption or a chaotically massive and uncontrolable revolt by the proles. Either way the Party falls. But I doubt any successor regime, at least at first, will be much better.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

Oh, it has got to be better than that continual surveillance, systematic torture, brainwashing, doublethink and attempt to end all independent thought!

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

If a successor regime renounces such methods, I agree.

Ad astra! Sean