Monday 2 January 2023

Politics And Daily Life In Two Future History Series

Robert Heinlein's Future History has:

technological advances in The Man Who Sold The Moon;

the daily life of the future in The Green Hills Of Earth;

political events in Revolt In 2100 and Methuselah's Children;

a short appendix in Orphans Of The Sky.

Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History has:

political events with some daily life of the future in Volume 1;

daily life in "Quixote and the Windmill," the first story in Volume2...

It becomes more complicated after that.

In 1950, Astounding Science Fiction published:

"Quixote and the Windmill" (month not known)
"The Double Dyed Villains" (February)
"The Helping Hand" (May)

3 comments:

Jim Baerg said...

I remember "Quixote and the Windmill "
I don't recall "The Double Dyed Villains"
IIRC "The Helping Hand" was about a situation where two defeated nations (planets) were offered a sort of Marshall Plan type of help, by the victor, the top diplomat from oneof the nations deliberately sabotaged getting help because be thought it would be worse in the long run for his nation & we see a decades later comparison of the situation in the two nations that he was right. Do I have the right story with this?

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sounds right.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Jim!

Yes, you are correct. I recalled being impressed by "The Helping Hand," despite it being such an early story by Anderson that it has some of the flaws and weaknesses typical for a beginning writer. But the ingenious plot twists and lines of thought seen in "Helping" more than compensates for those weaknesses.

Ad astra! Sean