Robert Heinlein's Future History begins before space travel and ends before regular interstellar travel. That dates it as a future history series. Poul Anderson's Technic History began during a period of faster than light (FTL) interstellar exploration - until "The Saturn Game" was added in 1981. But how likely is interstellar travel, let alone FTL? The latter has become a genre cliche. I think that future historians should concentrate on the future of Earth and of the Solar System and should go interstellar only if this can be rationalized in completely new ways. Cliches contradict speculation. Anderson did invent a new meaning for hyperspace in his Technic History and also thought of a new rationale for FTL every time he used the concept and also wrote several works involving STL interstellar travel. He continually renewed the genre which is the only way to write sf.
Short posts, folks.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I object to categorizing FTL as a mere cliche, not when some serious scientists think it just might be theoretically possible. Nor do I want SF to focus only on Earth and the Solar System.
Ad astra! Sean
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