Through Space With HG Wells And His Successors

In The War Of The Worlds by HG Wells, Martians invade Earth and Venus.

In Star-Begotten by Wells, Planetarium Club members discuss cosmic rays and Martians before one of their number summarizes and criticizes The War Of The Worlds, mistakenly attributing it to "'...Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, one of those fellows...'" (New York, 1975, p. 48), then proposes instead Martianization of human beings by cosmic rays.

In the Ransom Trilogy by CS Lewis, a scientist visits Mars and Venus, in the latter case as the spearhead of a planned demonic invasion. Lewis parenthetically comments that "...Mr Wells' Martians [are] very unlike the real Malacandrians..." (Voyage to Venus, London, 1978, p. 7).

In The War Of Two Worlds by Poul Anderson, Martians militarily conquer Earth but are being covertly manipulated by extrasolars.

In "Soldier From The Stars" by Anderson, humanoid extrasolars conquer Earth economically by selling their superior military services to the highest bidder among Terrestrial governments.

Later, I will add a few more alien invasions but I think that this is a neat progression through Wells, Lewis and Anderson. See here.

Humor In SF?

I have been asked what I think about humor in Poul Anderson in particular and in sf in general. I have read very little humorous sf. One value of humor is that it enables us to look at familiar or serious issues from a completely different perspective as the Greeks found when they watched a comedy after a trilogy of tragedies. Shakespeare's plays are Histories, Comedies and Tragedies, with Sir John Falstaff appearing in a History and a Comedy.

HG Wells wrote two frivolous short stories about flying and mountaineering with a common narrator, both unlike his usual style. A, if not the, major humorous sf writer is Robert Sheckley, highly recommended by other authors, but I have read almost none of his works. His Dimension Of Miracles is said to be similar to Douglas Adams' later The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, which is good sf humor but is also a classic example of a series continued for too long, even, in the books, adding extra volumes to a supposed "trilogy."

HHGTTG's proliferation through every available medium is also a bit overdone. I have seen the TV series and the feature film and read some of the books but have not heard the radio series or (I think?) the record or read the comic. When the feature film followed the plot of the TV series, I thought, "What is the point of this? It is the same as on TV, " whereas when it differed, I thought, "What is the point of this? It is arbitrarily changing the plot." Did we need two screen versions?

I value Poul Anderson's and Gordon R Dickson's Hoka series and Anderson's The Makeshift Rocket primarily as imaginative sf rather than for their humor. Anderson's best humor, I think, is in some chapters of A Midsummer Tempest but that is fantasy.

Anderson And Wellsianity

Copied from Poul Anderson Appreciation:

Associative processes are spiral, not linear. Setting out to reread The War Of Two Worlds by Poul Anderson, I instead began to read for the first time Threshold Of Eternity by John Brunner, published in the same Ace Double volume. Noticing, so to say, the obvious "Wellsianity" of both novels, I then reflected more generally on Wells and his successors.

Thus, this post belongs more appropriately on the Science Fiction blog and will be copied there. However, most page viewers visit Poul Anderson Appreciation. Further, Wells and other sf writers are discussed here not in their own right but to compare them with Anderson.

CS Lewis referred to:

"...what we may loosely call the Scientific Outlook, the picture of Mr. Wells and the rest." ("Is Theology Poetry?" IN Lewis, Screwtape Proposes A Toast and Other Pieces (London, 1965), pp. 41-58 AT pp. 45-46)

Lewis acknowledges that practicing scientists as a whole do not accept this "Scientific Outlook" and concedes that "...the delightful name 'Wellsianity'...", (p. 46) suggested by another member of the Socratic Club, would have been more appropriate.

Wells' works, both fiction and non-fiction, express Wellsianity as Lewis' express Christianity. Wells' science fiction pioneers four themes:

space travel;
time travel;
interplanetary invasion;
future history.

Wells has many successors, including Anderson and Brunner, and one main opponent. I have argued on the Science Fiction blog that Lewis' Ransom novels are a systematic reply to the four Wellsian themes.

Wells is content to describe:

a single journey to the Moon in the Cavorite sphere, which is lost at the end of the novel;
a single journey to the future on the Time Machine, which is lost at the end of the novel;
a single attack by Martians, who are killed by Terrestrial microbes;
a single historical turning point in the next two hundred years - although, as against this, the Time Traveler's journey to the further future shows him the devolution of mankind and the end of life on Earth.

Wells' successors describe regular space travel, time travel and alien contact and write longer future histories. Anderson's The War Of Two Worlds, like Wells' The War Of The Worlds, describes a war between Earth and Mars and Anderson went on to write many other accounts of interplanetary conflicts. Brunner's Threshold Of Eternity, like Wells' The Time Machine, describes time travel but, in this case, such travel has become routine and indeed a means of conflict.

I have argued previously that Olaf Stapledon and Poul Anderson are major successors of Wells.

Judgement And Doomsday

The Day After Judgement by James Blish and After Doomsday by Poul Anderson sound almost interchangeable. However, Blish's Judgement is spiritual and supernatural, a literal Armageddon, whereas Anderson's "Doomsday" is secular and scientific, the sterilisation of Earth by aliens. In other words, Blish's novel is fantasy whereas Anderson's is science fiction (sf).

CS Lewis begins Perelandra by pointing out that we imagine non-human intelligences as either supernatural or extraterrestrial, then informs us that his character, Ransom, met on Mars beings that were both. That shook me when I read it.

A few other sf writers have had similar ideas. In two of Heinlein's novels, the Martian "Old Ones" are ghosts. In Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, Martian "Old Ones" are spiritually evolved Martians. In Brian Aldiss's Helliconia Trilogy, Helliconians have contact with their hereafter which contrasts strangely with the Terrestrial observation station in orbit above their planet. (When, in that station, orderly life broke down, Aldiss wrote an italicised descriptive passage including this marvelous sentence: "Everything depraved flourished.")

Starting with a reflection on two superficially similar but essentially contrasting titles, I have drawn a few parallels between six great names in sf: Blish; Anderson; Lewis; Heinlein; Bradbury; Aldiss. 

The Must Reads

When I was a teenager in the 1960's, I wanted to read everything by Isaac Asimov, James Blish, Robert Heinlein and Clifford Simak. (Heinlein had not yet completely degenerated.) I caught up with Simak, read his, at that time, most recent publication and then forgot about him although he continued churning out novels, probably as many again after that. I thought that he had become repetitive and self-parodying. James Blish, whom I continued to revere, disliked Simak's three instances of talking dogs.

Poul Anderson was not then among my Must Reads. I read some of his works but not others. Now, of the writers mentioned so far, only Blish and Anderson are Must Reads and Anderson, because of his volume and range, is the only one about whom I can blog indefinitely.

After the 1960's, he wrote a lot more and my respect for what he had written increased. Once, when I browsed a novel of his, the blurb described an interstellar spaceship crew returning to Earth to discover that a Social Welfare Party had gained office in their absence. To me at the time, this did not sound sufficiently new so I returned it to the bookshop shelf. Let me end with a question: can any reader of this blog identify that novel from the description given here? Or maybe I am mistaken and it was not an Anderson novel? 

Time Out

I have just taken time out from Poul Anderson to reread "The Ethics of Madness" by Larry Niven, an early short story in the Known Space future history, published in 1967. It seems to come from a more innocent age:

technology, including medical technology, would continue to improve;

people would live longer and age less;

work would become easier and working hours less;

the economy would remain peaceful and prosperous throughout the many decades of a large population's extended lifespans.

Poul Anderson always recognized more sharply than Niven that life is not always easy and comfortable.

"The Ethics of Madness" comes from a time when the Known Space history was new and, like Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, was a worthy successor to Robert Heinlein's seminal Future History. The idea of setting several short stories and novels with or without continuing characters within successive periods of a projected history of the future several centuries or more in length was a genuine innovation. It is fitting that two major sf writers, Anderson and Niven, have  presented versions of the future different from each others' and from that of their inspirer, Heinlein. 

Kipling In Comics And SF

Mike Carey's The Unwritten features both Oscar Wilde and Rudyard Kipling as characters and made me seek out a verse I remembered from The Jungle Book. When I emailed the verse to Mike Carey, he replied with another Kipling verse about "...the old grey Widow-maker."

Neil Gaiman described his Sandman story, "Hob's Leviathan," as "...me doing Kipling..." (Hy Bender, The Sandman Companion, London, 1999, p. 180). "Hob's Leviathan" includes an Indian king who becomes a mendicant as an Indian Prime Minister did in The Second Jungle Book.

Poul Anderson's Harvest Of Stars Tetralogy names Kipling in Volumes I and III and quotes without naming him in Volumes II and IV and the first quotation is "...the old grey Widow-maker."

Ad Astra

Apart from "The...," what is the most frequent word in science fiction titles? There are references to "Mars," "Space" and "Time" and a few to "Sky":

Heinlein
Farmer In The Sky
Tunnel In The Sky
Orphans Of The Sky
(and Red Planet)

Blish
"Get Out Of My Sky"
(and Welcome To Mars)

Anderson
"Hunters Of The Sky Cave"
(and "The Martian Crown Jewels")

But the most frequent single word has to be "Star" or "Stars":

Aldiss
Starswarm

Heinlein
Star Beast
Starship Troopers
Time For The Stars
Starman Jones
Double Star

Asimov
The Stars Like Dust
(and "The Martian Way")

Blish
The Star Dwellers
Mission To The Heart Stars
They Shall Have Stars
A Life For The Stars
The Seedling Stars
Fallen Star
And All The Stars A Stage
Star Trek (script adaptations)
"Detour To The Stars"

Anderson
Trader To The Stars
We Claim these Stars!
The Enemy Stars
Star Fox
Harvest Of Stars
The Stars Are Also Fire
The Fleet Of Stars
Star Ways
World Without Stars
Starfarers

Anderson (titles of sometimes overlapping collections)
The Dark Between The Stars
Kinship With The Stars
Time And Stars

Burroughs
Beyond The Farthest Star
(and ten "Mars" titles)

Bester
The Stars My Destination

Clarke
The City And The Stars
(and The Sands Of Mars)

Shaw
Wreath Of Stars 

Bulmer
Behold The Stars



Screen
Star Trek
Star Wars  

Sequels

Some sequels should not have been written. Others are clever continuations that enhance the original.

Larry Niven's Ringworld Engineers makes us realize that his Ringworld had told us almost nothing about the place. Each volume of the originally unplanned and unintended Ringworld Tetralogy is different and imparts considerably more information until a history of the construct emerges.

James Blish's "A Case Of Conscience," a work that had been complete although ending ambiguously became, in expanded form, Book One of the Hugo award-winning novel, A Case Of Conscience. His Black Easter ended with demonic victory at Armageddon but, incredibly, his originally unplanned The Day After Judgement continues the story from exactly where the first work had ended and spells out the implications that we had missed. ACOC, ...Easter and ...Judgement, the latter two retrospectively regarded as a single work, form an originally unplanned trilogy with a historical novel.

Poul Anderson's Harvest Of Stars ends with colonists at Alpha Centauri planning to spread life through the universe. We do not expect to see this happen but his The Fleet Of Stars opens in a later colony, one of three, at Beta Hydri. We should also mention prequels. Anderson's Flandry stories, originally appearing in sf magazines, came to be preceded by three "Young Flandry" novels and to be followed by three later novels that could be packaged as "Children Of Empire." However, instead of continuing that or any other series indefinitely, Anderson later wrote new works like Harvest Of Stars.

The Best SF Series?

Although Robert Heinlein's Future History began by incorporating "all" of his sf stories at the time of writing, it soon became only a small part of his complete works and does not incorporate several novels clearly set in closely related timelines. The military hero Dahlquist, the blind singer Rhysling, the Lunar family Stone, the Space Patrol, Martians who "grow together" and swamp-dwelling Venerians occur both in the Future History and in some of Heinlein's Scribner Juvenile novels. The same Martians also appear in Stranger in a Strange Land. In fact, five Juveniles could be classed as a Juvenile Future History consistent with the "Green Hills of Earth" period of the (adult) History. However, longer future histories can become diffuse whereas Heinlein's remained concise. Dahlquist and Rhysling each make a significant contribution by appearing in only one story although, like real historical figures, they are also referenced in other possible futures.

   

Like Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, the Future History could be collected in two omnibus volumes with the first page of Volume II following directly from the last page of Volume I. The Time Patrol and the Future History are candidate "best" series, dealing respectively with past and future history. Both are definitely superior to Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, which won an undeserved Hugo Award as "Best Ever" sf series.

Larry Niven's Known Space future history, now rather diffuse, contains a Ringworld Tetralogy as a series within the series. The Tetralogy should be read in conjunction with Protector and the Beowulf Shaeffer stories if not also with the rest of Known Space. Again, this series is more imaginative and substantial than Foundation, as are Asimov's own I, Robot, James Blish's Cities in Flight and Anderson's several future histories.

All these series are developmental. Their installments go somewhere, unlike interchangeable episodes of a TV series. Readers of this piece will know of other candidate "best" series, possibly unknown to the present writer. In my opinion, Heinlein's Future History successfully competes with its successors. Heinlein, starting in 1939, skilfully built stepping stones from 1952 to the twenty second century. (See here.) Stories about technological advances were followed by a "first man on the Moon" story, then by several stories set in Luna City before Mars and Venus were colonized. The entrepreneurship that had opened space became economic imperialism with effective slavery on Venus before political tensions on Earth led to an American theocracy and temporary cessation of space travel. Revolution against theocracy had further consequences.

Wells cannot be considered here because he wrote no series. I would vote for Time Patrol as the best sf series with the Future History as a close second.    

Future History Foundations

Every future history series needs a good foundation, opening stories that establish the tone and set the scene for the rest of the series. I consider:

the Campbell future historians - Heinlein, Asimov and Blish (abbreviated as HAB);
Heinlein's main successors as American future historians - Anderson and Niven (AN);
Niven's collaborator, Pournelle (P).

This sequence of science fiction (sf) writings can be remembered by the formula:

HAB
A
NP

A comparable list of British future historians would be Wells, Stapledon, Aldiss and the lesser known RC Churchill: WSAC. There are other future historians but, for me, these are The Ten. However, a British future historian characteristically writes a fictitious historical text book, not a series of stories and novels set in successive periods of a fictitious history.

The first four stories in Heinlein's Future History lay down a solid foundation by presenting the social consequences of successive technological innovations. These four stories are set entirely on Earth. An escape velocity rocket fuel is due to be produced at the end of the fourth story. The first Moon landing occurs off-stage in the fifth story which, again, is set solely on Earth because what it describes is how Harriman, "the man who sold the Moon," wheels and deals to finance space travel. At last, in the sixth story, we see the construction of an orbiting space station that is necessary for regular Earth-Moon travel. From then on, much of the Future History presents people living on the Moon or further away in the Solar System.

Of the authors listed here, only Asimov is disappointing. His Galactic Empire future history, which includes the Foundation series, is preceded by an, in my opinion, logically inconsistent time travel novel that is supposed to set the scene for the Galactic Empire. However, Asimov's collection I, Robot is more akin to Heinlein's opening stories with its presentation of early experimental robots, early interplanetary exploration and early hyper-spatial interstellar travel.

The first volume of Blish's Cities in Flight future history is set entirely in the Solar System but describes the discovery of the antigravity and antiagathics which are the dual bases of the interstellar travel that is the theme of the rest of the series. The opening five stories of Niven's Known Space future history, set in the last quarter of the twentieth century, present the exploration of Mercury, Venus, Mars and Pluto. Then Niven turns his attention to the social consequences of technological advances on Earth. In Pournelle's CoDominium future history, an early period of political upheaval and military conflict lays the basis for the later accounts of imperialism and alien contact co-written by Niven.

The first four stories in Anderson's History of Technic Civilisation precede the introduction of his series characters, van Rijn and Falkayn. These four stories, spanning several centuries and immense volumes of space, are extremely varied in setting and viewpoint. Three are first person narratives but, in two of these, extra depth is added by the fact that the narrator is not the central character. Several background references, for example to the planets Cynthia, Woden and Aeneas, set the scene for later events and major characters in the History. The narrative, starting with the exploration of an outer satellite, moves to extra-solar planets, then returns to an Earth that has become host to alien visitors and students. As in Star Trek, we are given a glimpse of a character's pre-Academy days. Like Star Trek but much better.

Addendum, 4/6/12: While writing the above, I was insufficiently aware of the fact that Campbell edited Anderson's Polesotechnic League series, thus that Anderson was a Campbell future historian as well as a successor of Heinlein.

Campbell:

published Heinlein's Future History Chart;
advised Asimov to derail Seldon's Foundation Plan;
advised Blish that the Okies deserved a series and that their germanium-based interstellar currency would eventually fail;
gave Anderson the ideas of Mirkheim and of the Ythrian "supercharger." 

Haven't Future Histories Come A Long Way?

"The Man Who Sold The Moon" is the title story of the first volume of Robert Heinlein's Future History. Genesis, a late novel by Poul Anderson, is a single volume future history. D.D. Harriman, the entrepreneur who "sold the Moon," lived underground because, despite its suitably comfortable interior, his dwelling was an elaborate nuclear air raid shelter. Laurinda Ashcroft, a human-AI interface in Genesis, lives underground because the ecology is planned. Thus, these works reflect the concerns of the different periods in which they were written.

When Laurinda receives a visitor in her underground home, there is, for me, a faint echo of Delos Harriman's conversation with his wife in their underground home but the most notable feature of these works is the many differences between them. Harriman and Laurinda inhabit earlier and later periods of different fictitious timelines so they cannot meet except in the imagination of a reader who sees some tenuous connection between them.

Another measure of the distance travelled by future histories is simply the vast difference in scope and scale between Heinlein's Future History and Anderson's much longer History of Technic Civilisation. In the Future History, capitalism develops the Solar System but becomes oppressive. Social disorder on Earth leads to an American theocracy. This is followed by the Covenant which, after some further troubles, leads to a "mature culture." In the Technic History, capitalism develops a vast volume of interstellar space but becomes monopolistic. Social breakdown in the Solar System leads to an Empire which lasts for several centuries and volumes and is followed, after the barbarism of the "Long Night" period, by bigger and stabler civilisations in several spiral arms.

 

"If This Goes On -" is the first of only two novels in Heinlein's Future History. Ringworld's Children is the fourth novel in Larry Niven's Ringworld Tetralogy and maybe the eleventh novel in his Known Space future history depending on how we count them. (There are works written by Niven, co-written by Niven and written by others.) "If This Goes On -" occupies partly familiar territory. All the action is on Earth and Americans still go to church. If anything, sociologically, they have moved backwards to a form of medievalism with the Prophetic priesthood misusing modern communications technology until they are overthrown by the Second American Revolution. By contrast, Ringworld's Children is set not only much further in the future but also not even on a planetary surface. 

Several intelligent species contend in the space around the Ringworld, sometimes using anti-matter as a weapon. A ghoul protector uses nanotech to move the Ringworld out of Known Space through hyper-space. At least three terms here require explanation: Ringworld; ghoul; protector. But my point is simply the vast distance travelled conceptually and technologically from "If This Goes On -" to Ringworld's Children.

However, both Anderson and Niven have written in an American future historical tradition initiated by Heinlein. Without Harriman and the Prophets, there might never have been a Technic Civilisation, a Laurinda or a Ringworld. 

Influences on "SPECTRE"

Spectre

The word "spectre" has a literary history. Marx and Engels famously wrote, "A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of Communism." (1) Echoing this Marxist literary flourish but from elsewhere on the political spectrum, James Bond fought both SPECTRE and Communism. Ian Fleming, apparently fascinated by the word "spectre," used it three times. One criminal organization was based in "Spectreville," an American ghost town. Another was called SPECTRE, an acronym for "Special Executive for..." etc. A deciphering machine was called the SPEKTOR.  In Fleming's novels, the SPEKTOR pre-existed SPECTRE but, in one film, was re-named LEKTOR to avoid confusion with SPECTRE because that organization planned to steal that machine. SPECTRE wanted the SPEKTOR/LEKTOR.

My proposed SPECTRE is, like Marx's "spectre," Communist in the original meaning of the word and, like Fleming's SPECTRE, an organization to be regarded as evil at least by some. In this case, an appropriate acronym was easy to construct. Fortunately, "Socialist Party," or "Parties," is SP and it is easy to list the names of a planet and several moons: Earth, Callisto etc. The question of the precise meaning of the acronym gives some scope for deliberate misdirection about the location of Party cells. There is a moon called Enceladus and an asteroid as well as a moon called Rhea.

Future Histories

In Robert Heinlein's Future History, The Man Who Sold The Moon and The Green Hills Of Earth show the capitalist development of Earth and the Solar System, Revolt In 2100 shows a successful revolution and its aftermath, Methuselah's Children shows the flight of the persecuted Howard Families from the Solar System and Orphans Of The Sky shows a human community that has traveled far beyond the Solar System. My proposed future history is derivative both in concept and in content.

Poul Anderson's Harvest Of Stars future history shows the flight of free humanity from the Solar System when Artificial Intelligence takes over the System. In American science fiction, flight to the stars is the ultimate symbol of freedom although long periods inside a metal spaceship might be seen as the antithesis of freedom and it is no longer regarded as likely that habitable environments will easily be found on arrival. However, a community that crosses an interstellar distance must take its environment with it. I imagine the capitalist exiles as finding energy sources and constructing vast structures in the Outer System and in interstellar space. If they do reach a nearby System, then they are unlikely to find there either habitable or inhabited planets.

Heinlein's story about interplanetary exploitation is called "Logic of Empire." Asimov's characters experience the Fall of one Galactic Empire and aim to build a Second. Anderson's Dominic Flandry delays the Fall of a Terran Empire. Brian Cox in "The Wonders of the Solar System" on British television, poetically described the Solar System as the Sun's Empire. "Solar Empire" is an appropriate name for the capitalists opposed by SPECTRE.

Asimov's Second Foundation, building his Second Empire, applies a science of society to populations and a science of mind to individuals. In A SPECTRE Is Haunting Europa, the "science of society" is Marxism and the "science of mind" is either yoga or Zen. In the Foundation Trilogy, the psychohistorical Plan worked only if the population was unaware of its details whereas Marxists envisage the laboring population as becoming actively aware of its own historical role. The Second Foundationers' mental powers enabled them to control others whereas yoga is control of the yogi's own thought processes.

The future histories were presented as versions of our future. Space travel began in the twentieth century and continued in the twenty first. Since this has not happened, I envisage A SPECTRE Is Haunting Europa not as a possible future but as an alternative past. It is, or would be if it were written, a critical re-examination of earlier future histories.

(1) The Communist Manifesto. 

Faces

Many aliens in sf have heads with recognisable faces, minimally two eyes above and a mouth, for drinking, eating and speaking, below. A nose and visible ears are optional but usually present. Ears may be pointed. Star Trek has Spock of Vulcan and Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilisation has Aycharaych of Chereion, although Anderson does not commit the absurdity of suggesting that a Chereionite (descended from flightless birds) could interbreed with a Terrestrial. 

A fictional alien is generated, e.g., by putting a cat-like head onto a humanoid body. Thus, terrestrial features are projected onto extraterrestrial organisms as, in the past, onto supernatural beings. Closely linked to recognisable faces is easy communication. Like us, the aliens not only have faces but also use them for communication. Intelligible sounds emanating from mouths are supplemented by tones of voice and facial expressions as well as by familiar body language. We can learn each other's spoken languages. We may be friends, enemies or trading partners but in any case we understand each other. It is harder to imagine easy communication and friendship with faceless beings.

Probably all that can be said about alien intelligences is that, if they exist, they must have:

organs for perception and communication;
limbs for locomotion and manipulation;
orifices for ingestion and excretion. 

Anything lacking these functions is inanimate. Static, plant-like organisms do not interact with their environment enough to need to think about it so no motion or manipulation probably means no intelligence. Organs, limbs and orifices need not be immediately recognisable by us. They need not be organised in a way that we would recognise as bipedal, quadrupled, winged etc. The brain might be protected within the body or brain functions might be dispersed throughout the body. Organs etc should be identifiable by their functions if we have enough time to interact with their owners but their initial response to us might be fear, hostility, aggression, indifference etc.

 A bodily surface need not resemble skin, fur, feathers, rhinoceros hide etc. It will not have evolved in an exactly Earth-like environment. Too many factors could differ:

the mass of the planet, hence the strength of its gravity;
distance from its sun;
nature of that sun;
whether the "sun" is one of the fifty per cent of stars that have one or more stellar companions which might prevent the formation of any planets or at least of planets with stable orbits;
rate of rotation;
axial tilt;
the precise mixture of gasses in the atmosphere;
radiation levels;
the amount of free liquid on the surface;
whether chemistry on the planet is right- or left-handed;
whether there is a plant like grass that grows across the surface and that can be cropped down to ground level without being killed;
whether there is a large satellite whose gravity can thin out the atmosphere of the primary and can also cause tides, facilitating the evolution of amphibians and thus the transition of life from sea to land;
whether a quadruped climbed into equivalents of trees, stayed there long enough to develop opposable thumbs and came back down to the surface with forelimbs freed for manipulation;
whether such a biped was solitary and taciturn or social, thus potentially linguistic;
whether manipulation and communication could have developed otherwise;
whether predators, an ice age, a solar flare or a comet wiped out a promising species before it developed intelligence;
whether such a species has developed civilisation, then technology, and managed not to destroy itself long enough to contact intelligences in other solar systems.

The Burgess Shale implies that a small difference in environmental conditions could cause large differences in organic forms.

A long series of contingent events and processes was necessary to generate technological civilisation on Earth. Is it probable that such events and processes have been duplicated or paralleled elsewhere in the observable or even just the reachable part of the universe? There is as yet no positive evidence despite regular observation of heavenly bodies and, specifically, a Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. The expanding universe needed to reach a certain age, therefore size, before stellar fusion had synthesised, from the primordial hydrogen and helium, the heavier elements necessary for life. Thus, despite cosmic size, it is possible that we are the first intelligences. The discovery of several systems with super-Jovian planets near their primaries contradicts an earlier idea that the Solar System was a model for the formation of planetary systems, with at least one terrestroid planet in the temperate zone near the Sun and gas giants further out. A single datum from another planetary system is worth more than endless speculation.

Other optimistic sf premises are: 

easy faster than light interstellar travel;
humanly colonisable extra-solar planets (albeit sometimes requiring special equipment, precautions or dietary supplements).

Although I value Anderson's History, I doubt that our descendants will travel quickly or easily to other stellar systems there to meet equivalents of Merseians, Ythrians, Scothani, Donnarians, Cynthians, Wodenites, Chereionites, Diomedeans, Ivanhoans, Ikranakans, Starkadians (two species), Talwinians (two species), Didonians (three species symbiotically forming one intelligence), Martians (in this case, extra-solar aliens colonising a solar planet) etc. The non-humanoid Ymirites and Baburites might be less unlikely. Although many sf aliens may be as impossible as the gods of fantasy, we still enjoy such fiction, particularly when it is brought to life by Anderson's prose. The old quarter of a city on a colonised planet has:

  "...a brawling, polyglot, multiracial population, much of it transient, drifting in and out of the tides of space." (1)

Buildings are low because of Imhotepan gravity. The multifarious wares of the market place include a screen displaying:

"...an exquisite dance recorded beneath the Seas of Yang and Yin, where the vaz-Siravo [Starkadian refugees] had been settled." (2)

"Folk were mainly human, but it was unlikely that many had seen Mother Terra. The planets where they were born and bred had marked them. Residents of Imhotep were necessarily muscular and never fat." (3)

The view point character hears (Space) Navy men complaining about "Merseian bastards", then rushes to greet the first Wodenite, a giant centauroid, that she has ever seen. Such multi-species scenes are one glory of old sf.

 

(1) Anderson, Poul, The Game of Empire, New York, 1985, p. 1.
(2)  ibid, p. 3.
(3) ibid, pp. 3-4.

Future History Chronologies

In Ensign Flandry by Poul Anderson, the Terran Empire is over four hundred years old. (1) According to Sandra Miesel's "Chronology of Technic Civilisation," the Empire was founded about 2700 and Ensign Flandry is set in 3019, only about three hundred and nineteen years later. (2) However, Anderson's texts warrant no chronological precision. When the Chronology was being compiled, an editorial decision decreed that Dominic Flandry was born in 3000. Since Ensign Flandry does clearly state that its title character is nineteen, the date of 3019 for the novel automatically followed. (3)

The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov and Earthman, Come Home by James Blish are set in remote futures with no dates given. When, later, precise dates were specified, the effect was to shorten the histories implied by the earlier narratives. The Time Chart of Larry Niven's Known Space future history states that the dates as given in one story must be seen as erroneous. Robert Heinlein's Methuselah's Children and Time Enough For Love disagree about Lazarus Long's age. However, I do not accept Time Enough For Love as a valid addition to Heinlein's Future History.

Some generalisations emerge from these observations:

future histories usually are not pre-planned;
when a work has been published, its author becomes another reader with a fallible memory;
authors imagine longer periods when writing narratives than when compiling chronologies.

(1) Anderson, Poul, Ensign Flandry, London, 1976, p. 104.
(2) Miesel, Sandra, "Chronology of Technic Civilisation" IN Anderson, Poul, The Rise of the Terran Empire, Riverdale, NY, 2009, pp. 477-478.
(3) Ensign Flandry, p. 32.

Immortality

Fantasy

“Immortality” in science fiction (sf) can mean just that someone is immune to disease and old age but not also to accident or violence. He is not indestructible. By contrast, in Neil Gaiman’s fantasy series, The Sandman, the source of Hob Gadling’s immortality is supernatural, not chemical or genetic. The anthropomorphic personification of Death has agreed not to come for Hob. Consequently, he enjoys, or endures, more than just perpetual good health and middle age: he can be immersed, burnt and deprived of food but cannot be drowned, burnt or starved to death.

Hob’s immortality differs from that of Bernie Capax who is older – he remembers the smell of mammoths – but who meets Death when a wall collapses. Bernie then learns that his soul has a different kind of immortality. The fantasy Sandman presents the full panorama of Heaven, Hell and states between. Although Hob, like a few other deathless men, welcomes his physical immortality, The Sandman presents two other characters who, having become physically indestructible, long for extinction, the mythical Orpheus and the super-heroine Element Girl. (All mythologies and many comic book characters co-exist in this series of “graphic novels.”)

Fictional vampires have the same problem of living indefinitely and needing to conceal their longevity but we know how they can be killed.

SF

Although there are many other examples, I will mention briefly just twelve instances of sf immortality. Of the three Campbell future historians, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and James Blish, two addressed the idea. In Heinlein’s Future History, the Howard Families breed for longevity. After a few generations, they live well into their second century. The oldest member present chairs meetings. Like Hob and similar characters, they practice what they call the Masquerade: to conceal the fact of longevity, they periodically move elsewhere and change their identities. Later, public disclosure of the Howards’ longevity inspires a research project that finds a means of indefinitely extending anyone’s life span. Such artificial means of longevity exist in other works to be mentioned below but, first, there is another idea in the Future History.

An early Howard, Lazarus Long, lives indefinitely, for millennia, and becomes “the Senior”, the oldest member of the human race. Thus, he is a mutation who need not have been born to Howard Family parents. “Lazarus Long” is a Masquerade name. His birth name, Woodrow Wilson Smith, is a clue to his real age. In The Boat Of A Million Years by Poul Anderson, a small group of such mutations survives through recorded history and into an indefinite future. Crossing interstellar space, they split up but plan to meet again in another million years. 

Of course, Anderson could not possibly have written what these characters would be like after a million years. By that time, either they would all have died in accidents or those who yet survived would have become different characters. How much would they even remember? Each of them had already preserved his or her sanity by somehow marshaling inner resources in order to resist being overwhelmed by accumulating memories. By living that long, they perform functions that are usually performed by successive organisms without a memory accumulation problem. Death is the natural mechanism for memory deletion.

In Asimov’s future history, extra-solar colonists, inhabiting a germ-free environment, extend their life spans well into a second century and usually record their age in decades, not in years. A year becomes more like a month on that time scale. The only immortal being in this future history is a humaniform robot, not a human being. Thus, Robot Daneel Olivaw, having been introduced in the Robot novels, appears again millennia later in the Foundation novels which had originally been an unrelated series.

In James Blish’s Cities In Flight future history, antigravity and antiagathics make interstellar travel possible. Star-traveling characters live for centuries although we only realize later in the main volume that so much time has elapsed since the beginning of the book. Logically, some of the characters happen to live until the end of the universe although, for story purposes, that ending is brought much closer to the present than we would have expected. In fact, the date given, 4004 AD, contradicts suggestions in the previous volume that several millennia have elapsed during the interstellar period. Despite antiagathics, everyone dies but new universes begin.

In Larry Niven’s Known Space future history, “boosterspice” performs the same function as antiagathics. Further, protector-stage humanoids are immortal, although at the expense of no longer being “breeders”. However, in his alternative future history, A World Out Of Time, Niven imagines an elegant alternative source of immortality. If teleportation is possible, then the chemicals associated with aging can be teleported out of the body. Thus, the instant elsewhere is a young forever. It is perhaps a more acceptable form of immortality than another in the same book which arrests physical development before puberty, producing immortal children who must preserve mortal adults for breeding.

In Anderson’s Psychotechnic History, modeled directly on Heinlein’s Future History, it is suggested that an organism can be made immortal only by shielding it from all radiation, thus by incarcerating it underground, consequently producing a human being with an extremely limited experience and mental range. Scientists care for an immortal hospital patient: a dead end. Appropriately, this story is called “What Shall It Profit?” In Anderson's Technic History, “antisenescence” explains why Dominic Flandry remains active and might yet have more children although he is nearly seventy. However, antisenescence delays aging but does not prevent death.

By contrast, in Anderson’s World Without Stars, every human being uses “the antithanatic.” A few immortals lead changeless lives on planetary surfaces or in orbiting space stations but many trade and explore endlessly between galaxies which are made accessible by a series of instantaneous jumps in a spaceship. Many memories are artificially deleted to prevent cerebral overloading but it is necessary to preserve the overall pattern of the past and the important details. Hugh Valland, three thousand years old, remembers Mary O’Meara who died young in 2037 just before she would have had access to antithanatic. He revisits her grave on Earth as if revisiting a living woman and recounts experiences on many planets but must also have deleted many intermediate memories. He has somehow made sense of his indefinite longevity by focusing on one set of memories.

At any given time, what exactly does Hugh Valland remember? First, he has normal memories of whatever he has experienced since his most recent memory deletion. Secondly, he preserves vivid memories of Mary O’Meara. Thirdly, he remembers the pattern of his life since leaving Mary. Fourthly, within this pattern, he has perhaps a natural life span’s worth of memories of experiences in space, on other planets and back on Earth. However, he must have had to delete far more details than he has been able to retain. He maintains his purpose and remains celibate by focusing on ever fresh memories of one person. Only at the end when we realize that that one person is long dead do we doubt Valland’s sanity.

It seems appropriate to begin a brief consideration of fictitious immortality with the fantasy character Hob Gadling and to end with the sf character Hugh Valland.