In an Afterword to Volume I of his Psychotechnic series, Poul Anderson informs readers that, inspired by Robert Heinlein's Future History, he compiled a time chart and occasionally set a story somewhere within this chart. These stories became Anderson's first future history series. Although his second future history, the History of Technic Civilization, was not directly modelled on Heinlein's series but instead grew spontaneously from two originally independent series, it is nevertheless a Heinlein-type future history series on a vaster spatiotemporal scale than Heinlein's. In an Introduction to his
Operation Chaos, Anderson informs readers that this work deals with possibilities implied by Heinlein's "Magic, Inc." in which magic works like a set of technologies. These are Heinlein's two explicit influences on Anderson. Stories in the Psychotechnic History address the Heinleinian ideas of longevity/immortality and of a multi-generation interstellar spaceship and the Asimovian ideas of robots and of a predictive science of society.
"Magic, Inc.," a one-off story set in a near future where magic has been found to work, is collected in a single volume with another short novel, "Waldo," which may be conceptually linked. Both involve powers gained by contact with another universe. Operation Chaos is set in an alternative history and thus became linked to other novels by Anderson set in such histories. It also acquired a sequel in which magic is applied to space travel. Thus, Anderson developed Heinlein's ideas further.
Of the three Heinlein volumes mentioned in the previous post:
Starman Jones is one of Heinlein's twelve Scribner Juvenile novels;
The Man Who Sold The Moon and Orphans Of The Sky are the opening and concluding volumes of his five-volume Future History.
Apart from the Future History and Magic, Inc., we might find some parallels between Heinlein and Anderson in juveniles and in time travel.
8 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I remember WALDO & MAGIC, INC.! They were among the stories of RAH which pleased me as a boy.
And DOUBLE STAR was another example of Heinlein's versatility which shows him, when at his best, examining every possibility.
RAH was one of those writers who needed editors tough enough to object and argue when he was tempted to start writing dreck. Alas, once he got "too big" to be restrained by editors, dreck was what he mostly wrote after about 1960, starting with STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND.
I've tried, reading both versions of STRANGER and I WILL FEAR NO EVIL, but Heinlein's later stuff doesn't please me. THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS has some flashes of better writing, and that's about it.
Ad astra! Sean
DOUBLE STAR was another early read for me.
Kaor, Paul!
And I was esp. interested to see the US acceding to a world state reigned over by the Dutch House of Orange. It reminds me of Anderson/Dickson having the US acceding to the British Commonwealth in their Hoka stories.
Ad astra! Sean
Re: a world state with a reigning monarch.
See also the short story "The Fourth Vocation of George Gustav" by David Brin. My copy is in the collection "The River of Time"
It is set in a future with a solar system wide society that is in many ways desirable, but with a problem like that shown in "Quixote and the Windmill". An amateur sociologist investigates a 'ritual club' with the odd distinction of a hereditary leader who makes the odd claim of being descended from the hereditary monarchs of *all* the monarchies of earlier centuries. ;)
Kaor, Jim!
Hope this gets uploaded.
I've tried, but I don't recall reading any of Brin's stories. But I'm interested hat he touched on the problem we have to expect with a hypothetical post-scarcity economy: what are people going to do? Frankly, I expect boredom, ennui leading to despair, excesses in eating/drinking/drug abuse, dabbling in extremist politics, etc.
I also thought of Anderson's THE STAR FOX, where we see a World Federation whose member states have varied forms of gov't: some are republics while are monarchies. A bit like the United Commonwealths of Anderson/Dickson's Hoka stories.
Heck, you, I, or King Charles III could be descended from all the reigning/formerly reigning dynasties of the world, if the genealogies can be traced that far!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I don't think a post-scarcity economy will be switched on like a light bulb overnight. Assuming that we do not use technology to destroy our environment and ourselves, technology will continue to advance but large numbers of people will have to actively campaign for technology to be used to benefit everyone, not just Musk etc. Actively involved in changing society, many people will have an active interest in defending and participating in that changed society. They will not just be passive recipients of robotically dispensed food, drink etc.
Expect some people to value their new-won freedom, to travel, explore and learn. Humanity has two sides. You always accentuate the negative. There are positive people all around you right now.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I do not share your optimism, for reasons I see no need to repeat. We have to agree to disagree.
Far better to focus on mankind getting off this rock, so humans will scatter in different directions, founding different nations and cultures. And I'm going to expect some of those new nations to fail or be bad.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We are not trying to agree.
I keep showing in detail possibilities (no more than that) of how society might be changed and my specific examples are not replied to in corresponding detail. They just recede into the past of multiple combox threads.
But I am NOT saying that we should NOT get people off Earth as well. We need self-sustaining space habitats so that humanity's eggs are not all in one basket. Whether the Moon or Mars can become independent nations any time soon is another matter but we certainly need to get people out there as well as clearing up this appalling mess on Earth. At present, the Great Powers just want to conserve the mess with themselves (US or China) making bigger profits out of it but many people around the world want something better than that.
Paul.
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