Future History Pivotal Volumes

Robert Heinlein's Future History includes two novels: If This Goes On and Methuselah's Children. We don't hear of If This Goes On as a title because Volume III of the Future History has always been Revolt In 2100, collecting If This Goes On, "Coventry" and "Misfit." Volume IV, Methuselah's Children is the real climax of the series since Volume V, Orphans Of The Sky, is a brief aftermath. Methuselah's Children pulls the entire Future History together because it incorporates references to:

Pinero

Road Cities

"The Green Hills of Earth"

the swamp-dwelling Venerians

the Prophets

Coventry

Andy Libby (the "Misfit")

Luna City

Harriman

the first generation ship, Vanguard

Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History, modelled on the Future History, also has two novels: Virgin Planet and The Peregrine. The latter does not pull the whole history together but does refer to the technological unemplyment of "Quixote and the Windmill" and the Second Dark Ages which were beginning in "Brake."

The ultimate pivotal volume of a future history is The Earth Book of Stormgate in Anderson's Technic History which, as I have said before, completes the story of the Polesotechnic League, almost completes the story of human-Ythrian interactions and refers to the Terran Empire although not to Dominic Flandry. Thus, it paves the way for the Flandry and post-Flandry/post-Imperial periods and for one last account of human-Ythrian interaction.