Sunday, 2 November 2025

Three American Future Historians

Robert Heinlein wrote the five-volume Future History. Also, five of his Scribner Juvenile novels comprise a Juvenile Future History.

Poul Anderson imitated the Future History, then wrote seven other future histories.

James Blish wrote two future histories, Cities In Flight and The Seedling Stars, and also a non-linear future historical sequence in which later works refer to common earlier works despite diverging from each other.

See:

James Blish And Poul Anderson

The Haertel Scholium

I know that there are other future historians but I focus on these three!

(Right now, I am pleased with my succinct summary of Blish's complicated Haertel Scholium. About to walk out for Sunday lunch.)

3 comments:

S.M. Stirling said...

Poul was sensible enough not to put much detail about the -immediate- future into his SFnal future history.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

(Except for the Psychotechnic History.)

That makes for a good contrast with Heinlein.

Anonymous said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling and Paul!

Mr. Stirling: True, but I recall how Anderson could write "contemporaneous" stories when he chose to. Examples being "Peek! I See You!," his Yamamura stories, THE DEVIL'S GAME, and the 20th Century chapters of THE BOAT OF A MILLION YEARS.

Paul: Yes, but we need to remember how dissatisfied Anderson became with the Psychotechnic stories. For me the most technically interesting of these stories was "The Snows of Ganymede." And VIRGIN PLANET was the Psychotechnic story I most enjoyed reading.

Ad astra! Sean