Friday, 13 January 2023

Two Future Histories

After getting mankind, then the title character, Harriman himself, onto the Moon in the Future History, Volume I, The Man Who Sold The Moon, Robert Heinlein devoted Volume II, The Green Hills of Earth, to the interplanetary period, focussing particularly on Luna City, before describing the Second American Revolution in Volume III, Revolt in 2100. He later added three further short stories set on the Moon in the "Green Hills" period. Also, four of his early Scribner Juveniles:

Red Planet
Space Cadet (refers to Dahlquist)
Farmer In The Sky (refers to Rhysling's "Green Hills" song)
The Rolling Stones

-are consistent with the interplanetary period of the Future History.

By contrast, the interplanetary period of Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History takes off in "Holmgang" but is immediately interrupted by the Humanist Revolt, then by the overthrow of the Humanists followed by further political conflicts! The pre-packaged scheme of historical events gets in the way of presenting more details about daily life in the future, I think.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

The points you made in your last paragraph again reminds me of my view that since most of the Psychotechnic stories belong to Anderson's early phase, they show the weaknesses beginning writers are prone to make.

Ad astra! Sean