Tuesday 15 February 2022

The Near Future In Four Future History Timelines And Maybe In Reality

This will take some time to develop. The four future histories in question are:

The Future History by Robert Heinlein
The Psychotechnic History by Poul Anderson
The Technic History by Poul Anderson
The Maurai History by Poul Anderson
 
As we know:
 
the Future History is five volumes;
 
five Heinlein juvenile novels are consistent with each other and with the Future History, Volume II, The Green Hills Of Earth;
 
the Psychotechnic History was modeled directly on the Future History;
 
the Technic History grew organically into a Heinlein-style future history; 
 
the Maurai History is one of several later future histories by Anderson.
 
In the Future History, "The Man Who Sold The Moon" (1950) was written as a prequel to "Requiem" (1940) and "The Long Watch" (1949) was written as a prequel to the juvenile novel, Space Cadet (1948).
 
In the Psychotechnic History, "Marius" (1957) was written as a prequel to "Un-Man" (1953).
 
In the Technic History, "The Saturn Game" (1981) was written as a prequel to the History of Technic Civilization.
 
There Will Be Time (1973) was written as both prequel and sequel to the Maurai History. This time travel novel is fictitiously written in a timeline when the Maurai History is a work of fiction but is based on information provided by a time traveler.
 
To be continued. 

2 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I might have included Larry Niven's Known Space stories and Jerry Pournelle's Co-Dominium timeline. But I realize tat the way they opened up those series to contributions by other writers, including Anderson, makes them very difficult to discuss adequately in fairly brief blog pieces.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

My purpose is not just to list future histories but to highlight specific near future scenarios.

Paul.