In "day after tomorrow" sf, the recognizably familiar contemporary world is the setting for a revolutionary invention or discovery. James Blish refers to a dying breed of attic inventors. His readers remember Frankenstein, the Time Traveller, Cavor, the Invisible Man, Doctor Moreau, Robur etc. Blish's Adolph Haertel discovers anti-gravity and flies a tree hut to Mars. In CS Lewis' That Hideous Strength, scientists keep a guillotined head alive although the intelligence that speaks through the "Head" is demonic, not human. In Poul Anderson's Brain Wave, the discovery is that animal and human intelligence is increasing because Earth has moved out of an inhibiting radiation field. In all these cases, the point is that mankind interacts with the cosmos - with gravity, Mars, hyper-somatic intelligences, cosmic radiation - not just with itself. The universe waits while governments fight over parts of the Earth. (I was not leading towards that conclusion but now it seems inevitable.)
CS Lewis wrote somewhere that only the first visit to another world is of interest to a reader with imagination. We see what he meant without necessarily agreeing in detail. When a Lunar or Martian base has become an everyday environment for colonists and space travellers, then it has lost its newness. However, Anderson maintains the planet Avalon as an intriguing environment through three short stories and one novel.
Ad astra.
1 comment:
"day after tomorrow" sf
The only recent example of that which comes to my mind is "Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir.
Astrophage shows up in essentially present day solar system & presents immense problems & immense opportunities. The new technologies used by humanity are essentially all adaptations of present tech to use Astrophage.
In real life we get new technology that takes at least years to make practical & have an effect on society.
We will see what effect "Artificial Intelligence" has.
An interesting new invention that I hope will become practical is a sodium fuel cell.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/27/1117456/sodium-fuel-cell/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2542435125001436
It has an energy density much higher than any rechargeable battery, though less than a fuel like gasoline.
The sodium tank can be refueled much more quickly than a battery can be recharged and we don't get the reduction of capacity over recharge cycles that batteries usually have.
For this to have a major effect fueling infrastructure would need to be replaced which would necessarily take *time*.
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