The Shape Of Things To Come was a British political future history of its era whereas the Technic History is the ultimate (so far) expression of the, very different, Heinleinian model, individual stories set against a background of historical process: progress, breakdown, reconstruction, further conflicts etc with maybe an eventual mature civilization, which is another Wells parallel.
In the Technic History, Chunderban Desai predicts disintegration and a dark age but adds:
"'There is no absolute inevitability... I suppose, even this late in the game, we could start afresh if we had the means - more importantly, the will.'"
-Poul Anderson, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows IN Anderson, Sir Dominic Flandry: The Last Knight Of Terra (Riverdale, NY, March 2012), pp. 339-606 AT III, p. 389 -
- whereas the Time Traveller, a pessimist:
"...thought but cheerlessly of the Advancement of Mankind, and saw in the growing pile of civilization only a foolish heaping that must inevitably fall back upon and destroy its makers in the end."
-HG Wells, The Time Machine (London, 1973), 16, p. 101.
Wells, Heinlein, Anderson: science fiction and real issues.
The Time Traveller witnesses the old age of Earth. Flandry witnesses the old age of Chereion. Another planet and an older civilization.
See also here.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I far prefer Chunderban Desai's view, in which he states it might be possible for even a decadent civilization to sometimes undergo a vigorous revival. One real world example, discussed by both myself and Anderson in letters, being the astonishing revival of the Eastern Roman Empire, starting around 780. A revival which lasted for centuries.
Ad astra! Sean
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