Wednesday 31 October 2018

Future Histories II

Although it is interesting to compare future histories, I focus more on some than on others.

According to RC Churchill's A Short History Of The Future, Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano, Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles and George Orwell's 1984 are contemporaneous, then the nuclear war at the end of the two Bradbury works is followed by Aldous Huxley's Ape And Essence (not his Brave New World) and later by several other authors' narratives set in successive future periods.

I have read Churchill's book but do not possess a copy. It might be possible to find more information about its contents on the Internet. One of Churchill's discoveries was that the future is very different from the past, containing as it does many arbitrary and alarming events. 1949 was a turning point year and is also the year in which I was born.

Googling reveals that there are more recent relevant works that I am unfamiliar with.See Four More Future Histories.

Future Histories

British
Wells, The Shape Of Things To Come
Stapledon, Last And First Men
Aldiss, Galaxies Like Grains Of Sand
RC Churchill, A Short History Of The Future

American
Burroughs, The Moon Trilogy
Heinlein, The Future History
Asimov, Robots and Empire
Blish, three including one that branches
Anderson, eight or nine
Niven, Known Space
Pournelle, CoDominium
Piper, Terrohuman
Bradley, Darkover
Simak, City
Le Guin, Hainish
Cordwainer Smith, The Instrumentality

Tuesday 30 October 2018

First Man On The Moon

A one volume collection of "first man on the moon" short stories - or at least shorter than novels? Contents?

"The Man Who Sold The Moon" by Robert Heinlein.
"Forms Of Things Unknown" by CS Lewis.
"The Light" by Poul Anderson.
"Wrong Way Street" by Larry Niven.

What else?