Sunday, 24 August 2025

Culminations

Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization is a definitive future history series.

Anderson's Time Patrol series is a definitive causality violation time travel series. (Is it the only causality violation time travel series?)

Anderson's There Will Be Time is both a circular causality time travel novel and a synthesis of time travel with future history.

Robert Heinlein's "By His Bootstraps" is perhaps the definitive circular causality time travel story.

Anderson's Genesis is an ultimate single-volume Stapledonian future history and a culmination of the theme of Frankenstein, the first science fiction novel. (Is it right to create human beings?)

Giving Heinlein his due, Anderson surpasses him.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Kaor, Paul!

I agree Anderson Technic Series surpassed Heinlein's Future History. And Asimov's ultimately disappointing Foundation books.

I argue that other future histories deserve at least honorable mention:

Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality of Mankind stories

David Wingrove's CHUNG KUO series

H. Beam Piper's Terro Human History

Larry Niven's Known Space stories, with contributions from other writers.

Jerry Pournelle's Co-Dominium timeline, with contributions from other writers.

Ad astra! Sean