Methuselah's Children is Volume IV of Robert Heinlein's Future History. "What Shall It Profit?" is the eighth instalment of Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History. In
Methuselah's Children, a group of people who live longer than usual conceal their longevity by moving around and changing their identities. In "What Shall It Profit?," a character thinks that this procedure, which Heinlein's Howard Families call "the Masquerade," is happening. It is not but only because experiments with immortality have had a different outcome. Here, Anderson's first future history series addresses an idea from Heinlein's Future History as it does again in the following instalment, "The Troublemakers," set inside a slower than light multi-generation interstellar spaceship like the one in Heinlein's Future History, Volume V,
Orphans Of The Sky.See An Unexpected Future History. Heinlein's second Future History story, "Let There Be Light," cites Back To Methuselah.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Desiring to avoid being too specific, I thought it was clever of Anderson having the researchers trying to find ways of prolonging human lifespans bumping into a problem apparently making their efforts futile.
Ad astra! Sean
'twould be very difficult for a substantial group of people to do that identity-switch thing today. Biometrics have spread too far, and records are more complete. Individuals can do it; groups, not so much.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, but that was not the problem I had in mind from "What Shall it Profit." There was a more fundamental problem in that research project that seemed to make that effort at extending human lifespans a dead end.
Ad astra! Sean
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