More Martians And Invasions

The previous post traced a conceptual thread through Wells, Lewis and Anderson. We can also do this with Lewis, Bradbury and Heinlein. All three show immortal beings on Mars. In Lewis' Out Of The Silent Planet, Earthman travel to Mars with evil intent. In Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and Heinlein's Red Planet, human beings colonize Mars.

In Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land, a man raised by Martians founds a Terrestrial religion whereas Lewis' Elwin Ransom returns from Mars and Venus to become the Pendragon of Logres and the spearhead of extraterrestrial intervention.

In Heinlein's The Puppet Masters, as in Nigel Kneale's Quatermass II, alien invasion involves mental control whereas, in Jack Finney's Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, it involves body duplication and, in Larry Niven's and Jerry Pournelle's Footfall, it involves asteroid stikes.

In Olaf Stapledon's Last And First Men, Martians invade Earth and Terrestrials invade Venus and Neptune. In Sleeping Planet by William Burkett, extrasolars invade Earth but are soon defeated whereas, in the Tripods Trilogy by John Christopher, extrasolar invaders have ruled Earth for generations but are eventually overthrown.

And I think that Clifford Simak has some alien invasions?

Nuclear Warfare In Science Fiction

 Novels involving nuclear warfare:

The World Set Free by HG Wells;
On The Beach by Nevil Shute;
Ape And Essence by Aldous Huxley;
Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury;
Twilight World by Poul Anderson (see here).

In CS Lewis' The Hideous Strength, first published in 1945, World Wars I and II "'...were simply the first two of the sixteen major wars which are scheduled to take place in this century.'"
-Lewis, That Hideous Strength (London, 1955), p. 157.

Robert Heinlein predicted "Mutual Assured Destruction" in "Solution Unsatisfactory" and described free men continuing to fight after a nuclear war in "Free Men."

In Isaac Asimov's future history, a far future radioactive Earth probably resulted from a near future nuclear war - although Asimov revised the history later.

In James Blish's A Case Of Conscience, populations wind up living underground in permanent city-sized nuclear air raid "Shelters," even though nuclear war is avoided.

In Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium future history, the Great Patriotic Wars of 2103 end the CoDominium and are followed by the Exodus of the Fleet so they sound like a delayed World War III.

In SM Stirling's Draka timeline, the three major wars of the twentieth century are not numbered but named - the Great War, the Eurasian War and the Final War.

Harry Turtledove describes Anson MacDonald (Robert Heinlein) fighting on after Stirling's Final War.

In Alan Moore's V For Vendetta, "England prevails" under fascist rule after opting out of a nuclear exchange whereas, in the same author's Watchmen, a faked inter-dimensional invasion prevents a nuclear war.

Concerning Stories Never Written II

In his "Postscript: Concerning Stories Never Written," Robert Heinlein says that the unwritten story, "Eclipse," would have dealt with the Martian and Venerian colonies becoming independent. He adds that this story will probably never be written because:

"...I have dealt with the themes involved at greater length in two novels which were not bound by the Procrustean Bed of a fictional chart; it would be tedious for both you and me to deal with the same themes again."

Which two novels? I know of three possible candidates:

Red Planet, a Scribner Juvenile and a volume of the Juvenile Future History;

Between Planets, a Scribner Juvenile, not part of the Juvenile Future History, e. g., different races of Martians and Venerians;

The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, an adult novel which, like both Future Histories, has a family called Stone on the Moon.

It would be possible to extend Heinlein's Future History Time Chart by adding a column for parallel timelines. Several works have features in common with the Future History although they do not fit into that History. Podkayne Of Mars has a Venusburg on Venus but its Martians and Venerians are different again from those in the two Future Histories. The Postscript bestows on the readers auctorial permission to read at least two (or three?) of those works with the knowledge that events like these, the gaining of colonial independence, also occurred within the Future History.

Thus, read the History, then read the supplementary volumes.

Concerning Stories Never Written

I have read Robert Heinlein's post-script to some editions of Revolt In 2100, "Concerning Stories Never Written," for the very first time. Heinlein neatly summarizes the first three volumes of the Future History and the first three unwritten stories, that might have comprised a volume between Vols II and III:

The Man Who Sold The Moon covers the second half of the twentieth century and ends with very early space travel;

The Green Hills Of Earth describes the exploration of the Solar System in the early twenty first century and "...end[s] with the United States a leading power in a systemwide imperialism embracing all the habitable planets";

Revolt In 2100 begins with the US under an isolationist Theocracy;

"The Sound Of His Wings" would have described the rise of the First Prophet;

"Eclipse" would have described Martian and Venerian independence;

"The Stone Pillow" would have described the growth of the anti-Theocratic underground.

(Heinlein does not mention that the contents of Vols I and II overlap.)

He was right that:

space travel might be marginal, subsidized for military reasons, then die out;

anti-scientific televangelization could, maybe in an economic depression, lead to a dictatorship.

This post-script gives a considerable insight into Heinlein and his series. It is an important part of the History and should be included in any future edition.

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. 

"Hard Fantasy"

The premise of Robert Heinlein's "Magic, Inc." is that magic works and is practised like a set of technologies. Magical practice is based on the reality of supernatural entities and forces, not on any new theory, discovery or application of the natural sciences. Thus, "Magic, Inc." is fantasy, not science fiction (sf).

We might call it "hard fantasy" to indicate that the implications of the premise are deduced as rigorously as are the consequences of any new technology in hard sf.

Two other "hard fantasies":

in The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers, there is time travel to historical periods with circular causality as in an sf novel but here the time travel is one of several applications of magic;

in Black Easter/The Day After Judgement by James Blish, demons are real.

Blish wrote mostly hard sf. It is possible, when reading his fantasies, to forget that they are a different genre from his sf. Indeed, some of his characters find it hard to believe that their high technology coexists with demons. In fact, Black...Judgement is the second volume of a trilogy about the conflict between secularism and supernaturalism. Volumes I and III remain ambiguous but it is a premise of Volume II that demons exist and are neither technological nor extraterrestrial but supernatural.

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  

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.    

Some Details in Stapledon and Heinlein

Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon is a history of the next two hundred million years. One of the Last Men on Neptune induces Stapledon in the twentieth century to write a history of the future. Stapledon thinks he is writing fiction and, in fact, the central nervous system of a First Man distorts most of the Neptunian's thoughts.

 

The Future History by Robert Heinlein is stories and novels set in the period from 1952 to the twenty second century. Let us suppose as a fictional premise that the Future History occurs in a parallel timeline mentally accessed by Heinlein while writing and that there was distortion. We may then deduce that Rhysling, the Blind Singer of the Spaceways, must have written better poetry than the verses attributed to him by Heinlein. Perhaps poetry is particularly difficult to transmit between universes.

Heinlein had frog-like Venerians who found eating obscene and had to do it alone. Stapledon had had frog-like Venerians and also Neptunians. Some of the latter found eating obscene and had to do it alone. Some of Heinlein's characters travel physically to the past or future. Stapledon's characters can visit only the past and then only by occupying the central nervous systems of earlier beings.

Heinlein was the first American future historian whereas Stapledon followed Wells in British sf. Both followed Wells in writing about time travel, space travel and alien invasion.  

 

...Or An Independent Story

An alternative reading of "' - We Also Walk Dogs'" (see here) is that, despite being listed in the Time Chart and despite being included in a Future History collection, it does not really fit into Heinlein's Future History. Its newly invented gravity control technology is not mentioned in later stories where it would have made a difference. It refers to seven extra-terrestrial races in the Solar System whereas other Future History stories mention only two: Martians in "Ordeal in Space," Venerians in "Logic of Empire" and both in "The Green Hills of Earth." Further, these Martians and Venerians seem unlikely to engage in the kind of interplanetary power politics suggested by " '- We Also Walk Dogs.'" The story mentions Luna City but a lunar colony of that name could exist in almost any future involving space travel. 

Because the Future History is a series, not a serial, most of its installments could be read and assessed separately. "Common Sense" is a sequel to "Universe" and "The Man Who Sold The Moon" was written as a prequel to "Requiem." The latter, about Harriman's death, would have remained a valid story even if Heinlein had not later added the longer account of Harriman's earlier career.

If "' - We Also Walk Dogs'" is read separately, then it need not be seen as leading to the worsening political conditions of "Logic of Empire." Instead, its protagonists look forward to profiting from the application of the "O'Neil effect" to space navigation, colonization and recreation. One comments that, "There's always money in giving people what they want." That sounds like a utopian future for all: the public gets what it wants and their suppliers get "...gobs of money..." in the process. In practice, of course, many members of the public might not be able to afford luxury items and a market economy can be guaranteed not to expand indefinitely but we still seem to be looking at a brighter future than the one described in the ensuing episodes of the History.

A Pivotal Story

Some stories in Robert Heinlein's Future History are pivotal whereas others are not. Thus, three works, "Blow-ups Happen," "The Man Who Sold The Moon" and "Delilah and the Space Rigger," are collectively pivotal between Earth-bound stories and Luna City-based stories. The stories cover the development of an escape velocity rocket fuel, the landing of a man on the Moon and the construction of a space station necessary for regular Earth-Moon flight. "The Green Hills of Earth" is pivotal between Luna City and the wider Solar System. "Logic of Empire" pivotally shows that interplanetary exploitation does not benefit everyone while an extreme political alternative gains ground on Earth. "If This Goes On -" is pivotal not only between the first interplanetary period and the Prophetic Interregnum but also between the latter and the post-revolutionary Covenant which is pivotally broken in Methuselah's Children. Pivots become more frequent as political change moves to the foreground of the series.

By contrast, some stories are set in a particular period of the History but do not advance the History beyond that period. This is certainly true of the three Moon-based stories added later. However, I argue for the pivotal status of "' - We Also Walk Dogs.'" This story informs us that Earth has gained a planetary government although national legislatures remain. This sets the scene for the United States seceding from the Federation later in the series. The story features a world-wide general purposes organization called General Services. This organization's ubiquity might explain why the phrase, "Can I do you a service?," sometimes abbreviated to "Service," becomes the polite greeting in a later period. The story generates the impression of being set in a utopian future but only because it focuses on the lives of the rich or of those who earn high salaries by providing them with quality services. "Logic of Empire" shows economic divisions and inequalities. However, the move towards a utopia is more nearly realized in the sequel to "If This Goes On -," "Coventry."

Gravity control, discovered in "' - We Also Walk Dogs,'" must be lost in the Interregnum because it is absent from Methuselah's Children and "Universe" where interstellar spacecraft are spun to generate centrifugal force. Martians, Venerians, Jovians, Titans, Callistans and two other unnamed Solar races are mentioned although only the first two make brief appearances elsewhere in the History. (Since the first successful interstellar explorers meet two extra-Solar races in a single round trip, the galaxy of the Future History seems to be  well populated.)

Unlike "Logic of Empire," "' - We Also walk Dogs'" gives no hint that "Things are bound to get a whole lot worse before they can get any better" but that is because it reflects a different segment of a complicated future society where one highly paid General Services operator has a pocket phone. The background information and optimistic tone of the story make positive contributions to the Future History.        

Heinlein's Future History and Social Change II

I mentioned regular space travel and alien contact as features of Heinlein's Future History that have not yet materialized in reality. We can add that, if there is to be any alien contact, then it will have to be extra-solar. Neither the humanly habitable Venus nor the easily colonized Mars, let alone the swamp-dwelling Venerians or the contemplative Martians, really exist.

Also, we have neither a world federation nor an imminent religious dictatorship in the United States. A federation is unlikely in the foreseeable future. How about a US religious dictatorship? There are certainly potential First Prophets.

In the Future History, the post-Revolutionary Covenant is followed by social unrest, then by a "mature culture." What would that be like? To a writer like Heinlein, a mature civilization might be based on something like a crisis-free capitalism. However, Marxists argue that crises are inherent in capitalism because competitive re-investment necessarily causes the rate of profit to fall. Such questions will be answered in real political conflicts but science fiction writers can try out some answers in advance.

Heinlein's Future History and Social Change

Heinlein's Future History celebrates the social impact of technological change. As such, it celebrates the world in which Heinlein lived and in which we live now that some of our year dates correspond to those in the series. It is to be hoped that we will have a, beneficial, "Revolt in 2100," if not sooner.

Although Heinlein anticipated future changes, we are already living in a technologically changed world. This has been true since the beginning of agriculture and increasingly true since the seventeenth century. Imagine that we inhabit a fictitious future history written in 1900 and read by people who really expected their pre-1914 regimes to survive till 2014 or later.

Heinlein shows the impact of technology on daily life, economics, politics and popular religion as well as the political and religious misuse of communications technology. Much of what he describes is paralleled in the real world. No one lives on the Moon yet because, despite the arguments of Heinlein's character, Harriman, and of Heinlein's successors, Anderson, Niven and Pournelle, the capital expenditure of space travel is too great in relation to any perceived profit. The US seems to have raced to the Moon to develop rocket and computer technology for use on Earth.

We are not in contact with any Martians or Venerians, which are in any case marginal in the series. These were science fictional props that were not necessary for Heinlein's speculations about rocket technology although he did expect contact to be made with Martians. Despite the existence of other intelligent species in and beyond the Solar System, the Future History becomes mainly an account of the future of humanity comparable to works by Wells and Stapledon. 

The Structure of a Series: Robert Heinlein

(i) Four stories about near future technological advances on Earth:
a "baronovitameter" or (in another edition) a "chronovitameter," for measuring the length of a life;
solar power;
moving roads;
a dangerous nuclear power plant that will be placed in orbit.

(ii) Four stories about early Earth-Moon travel:
the financing of the first Moon landing;
the construction of Space Station One;
regularized Earth-Moon travel;
old Harriman, "the Man who sold the Moon," makes it to the Moon.

(iii) Four stories about regular life on the Moon:
the Space Patrol honors a hero;
an accident;
a lost child;
a Moon-dwelling couple return to Earth but realize that they belong on the Moon.

(iv) Three stories added later about life on the Moon:
low gravity sport and romance;
a second lost child;
lost Boy Scouts.

(v) Four stories about interplanetary travel beyond the Moon:
Rhysling and others cross the Solar System, colonizing Mars and Venus;
a spaceman who knows Martians overcomes his fear of falling;
representatives of several intelligent species meet on Earth;
colonists are enslaved on Venus but a Prophet rises on Earth...(he will establish a theocracy between stories).

(vi) One novel and two stories about an interruption to space travel:
life under the Prophets and the anti-Prophetic Revolution;

after the Revolution, anti-social individualists, surviving followers of the Prophet and advocates of a strong state are sent to the ungoverned area, Coventry, beyond the Barrier;

also after the Revolution, space travel is resumed and asteroids are moved to orbits between Earth and Mars where they are adapted as space stations for refueling and rescue.

(vii) One novel and two stories involving interstellar travel:
a crisis in the Covenant leads to an interstellar round trip;

some members of the crew of the lost first interstellar spaceship learn that their large enclosed ship is not the entire universe;

some crew members escape from the ship.

(viii) Six "stories-to-told" that were never written although their proposed content informed the background of the series:
the Antarctican revolution;
resistance movements on Mars and Venus;
the First Prophet's early days;
early resistance to Prophetic rule;
a work to be called "Da Capo" that would have been set centuries later.

(ix) A Time Chart listing stories, characters, events, technologies and social backgrounds. 

That is it. Any works added later are no good. Several other works are closely related, even referring to common characters and alien races, but they do not fit into this linear sequence. Given that the Future History was never going to comprise the entirety of Heinlein's science fiction (sf) output, the question becomes: did he successfully organize part of that output into a coherent history? Yes. The integrity of the series is not compromised by the existence of closely related works that are not fully consistent with the History. In fact, several of his juvenile novels almost form a divergent though parallel history. A short story about Dahlquist, the Patrol hero, and one about Rhysling, the Blind Singer of the Spaceways, are in the Future History. A juvenile novel that refers to Dahlquist and another that quotes Rhysling's songs are not in the History. But the History as a series remains substantial.

 

Because of Heinlein's attention to technical details, the series takes six stories to reach the common sf starting point of regular space travel and even then only between Earth and Moon. The original series, collected in five volumes, comprised four groups of four stories, then two novels each followed by two shorter pieces: (4 x 4) + (3 x 2) = 16 + 6 = 22 items. The pre-Prophetic stories, about ordinary people in a common future setting, do not present a political history and therefore might not seem to comprise a future history series but they are seen to be substantial when read or re-read individually. Politics is in the background:

there is a transport strike and attempted revolution in the moving roads story;

Harriman describes Communism as "still a menace," though only to manipulate the media - he argues that a sovereign Lunar state established by private enterprise is preferable to a Lunar Soviet aiming nuclear warheads at Earth (the latter gives him nightmares...);

the UN cancels space flights that would pass too close to its orbiting nuclear weapons;

Dahlquist prevents a nuclear strike and military coup by fellow officers in the peace-keeping Patrol;

later, a planetary government convenes the multi-species conference - national legislatures like the British Parliament still exist but the confederation treaty recognizes the planetary government as sovereign.

Private investment opened space ("The Man Who Sold The Moon") and imperialist exploitation developed Venus ("Logic of Empire"). Thus, Harriman's idealism and entrepreneurship eventually led to indentured servitude. Heinlein's Future History Time Chart says that Antarctican, American and Venerian revolutions ended interplanetary imperialism. The stories show only some of the details. Free men organize on Venus. Later, the US is a theocracy. Later again, that theocracy which, according to the Time Chart, began with a US "revolution," is overthrown by the more appropriately named Second American Revolution.

The Prophets' followers, the "Angels of the Lord," must be derived from Christianity although this is not confirmed. Terminologically, they combine Christianity with Islam -

Christianity: God Incarnate;
Islam: the Prophet;
Angels: the Prophet Incarnate.

Like some Muslims, the Angels reject Church-State separation. Medieval Christendom had a Pope and an Emperor (in England, a King and an Archbishop), and conflict between them, whereas, after the election of President Scudder, the United States has only a reigning Prophet. Heinlein's other nasty Christian derivative is the Fosterite Church of the New Revelation in Stranger in a Strange Land. Both Angels and Fosterites claim direct contact with Heaven. Archangels tell the Fosterite Supreme Bishop exactly when a couple who have left their property to the Church will go to Heaven and the Church organizes a farewell party... None dare call it murder. The First Prophet is said to return in the flesh annually at the Miracle of the Incarnation. Heinlein knew that modern communications technology could be used to broadcast nonsense. We, the readers, meet neither the hedonist Foster nor the ascetic Scudder in person - but we know that Scudder's successors do not adhere to his asceticism. The revolutionary Cabal cannot take the deposed Prophet alive because his Virgins get to him first.

  

Some stories are stepping stones to later works. Escape velocity rocket fuel is developed at the end of the fourth story, "Blow-ups Happen," about nuclear power. Harriman puts a man on the Moon in the fifth story, "The Man Who Sold The Moon." A space station, necessary for regular flight between Earth and Moon, is constructed in the sixth story, "Delilah and the Space-Rigger." The seventeenth story, "The Green Hills of Earth," about Rhysling, the Blind Singer of the Spaceways, bridges the gap between passages referring only to Luna City and those also referring to colonies on Mars and Venus. Rhysling, blinded by radiation while exploring the asteroids, had regularly flown between Earth and the Moon before joining the first deep space trip, to Mars. He later visited Venusburg and wrote songs that are sung, in the eighteenth story, "Logic of Empire," by indentured men who relax in Venusburg. That story ends with a reference to the political preacher, Nehemiah Scudder, and the next work, "If This Goes On -," begins with its narrator guarding the apartments of the Prophet Incarnate. Technological, economic and social changes have at last generated a religious/political upheaval. Questions about government have moved from the background to the foreground of the series.

"If This Goes On -" refers back to a World War III, an important event not mentioned in the Time Chart, but also refers to the Federation, the UN-derived planetary government dating from the first interplanetary period which prevents wars by monopolizing nuclear weapons. When the Angels are overthrown, Heinlein conveys revolutionary turmoil: argument in the constitutional convention; the Onward Christian Soldiers' resentment of the timing of the Cabal's insurrection. The Prophets had seceded from the Federation. The latter does not immediately recognize the new regime and will not authorize nuclear weapons to end a civil war. Thus, in a few background-establishing sentences, Heinlein contextualizes the Second American Revolution. The UN had established the Patrol and become the Federation which will oppress the Families (see below) but will, according to the Time Chart, be succeeded by a mature culture.

  

After the madness of the Prophets, a sane society is built but its peace is threatened by mass envy of the Howard Families' longevity. Obliged to lead his persecuted fellow Howards out of the Solar System, Lazarus Long unintentionally provides a further fulfillment for Harriman's dream of space travel. When, after difficult experiences in two inhabited systems, the Howards discuss whether to return to the Solar System, Lazarus has Rhysling's song, "The Green Hills of Earth," played over the PA.

The Future History could be packaged in five sections not exactly corresponding to the original five volumes.

Earth: six stories set on Earth or in Earth orbit ("The Man Who Sold the Moon" is set entirely on Earth although the first Moon landing, in 1978, occurs off-stage).
Moon: six stories in the original History plus two more added in The Past Thru Tomorrow plus one more added in Expanded Universe.
Interplanetary: four stories plus possibly "Tenderfoot in Space," which I have not read, if it is set on the same version of Venus.
Interregnum: the Prophets, revolution and after.
Interstellar: the rest.

  

Appropriate volume titles for such a repackaging would be:

The Man Who Sold The Moon;
The Black Pits of Luna;
The Green Hills of Earth;
Revolt in 2100;
Orphans of the Sky.

This involves swapping two stories between collections, then splitting one volume and amalgamating two of the original five. The Moon story, "The Black Pits of Luna," is, as far as titles go, a companion piece to "The Green Hills of Earth." Rhysling's song refers to "...harsh bright soil of Luna..." The song as a whole refers not to a life spent on Earth but to spacemen's nostalgia for "...the globe that gave us birth...," as they travel beyond the Moon and further into the Solar System.

Revolt in 2100 remains unchanged in the proposed repackaging. The original Orphans of the Sky collected the two stories set in an interstellar spaceship whose crew are "orphans" because they are lost, having forgotten even where they came from. However, the title characters of Methuselah's Children, the Howards, become "orphans" when they flee from the Solar System. Therefore, Orphans... would be an appropriate title for a collection of all three works that would be a culmination of the History.

Pivotal characters in the series as a whole are:

Harriman who sold the Moon;
Dahlquist who defended freedom;
Rhysling, the "Blind Singer" who was on the first trip to Mars;
Scudder who destroyed freedom for three generations;
Novak of the Covenant;
Long who freed the Howards.

It is difficult to finalize this text because a wealth of details deserves to be mentioned. Heinlein's Preface said that this fictional history was at least as real to him as Plymouth Rock. This is true for many of his readers. 

        

The early part of a future history can set the scene for later action:

Wells analyzed then current world affairs before moving into the future (he had described a first Moon landing in a separate work);

Niven's Known Space series begins with four stories of interplanetary exploration;

Anderson's Technic History begins with one story of interplanetary exploration and one of interstellar exploration;

Blish's Cities in Flight begins with regular interplanetary travel, then describes the two discoveries that make interstellar travel possible.

All sf writers are indebted to Wells. Blish, Anderson, Niven and others are also indebted to Heinlein, particularly for his Future History.   

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. 

"A SPECTRE Is Haunting Europa"

Notes towards a future history:

(i) A technology that enables people to live and work throughout the Solar System, generating energy from the materials available, while recognizing that the System is electromagnetically and gravitationally a single environment, not merely a number of bodies with empty spaces between them. Colonies on the outer satellites.

(ii) Stories showing the exploitation of the System over several decades with political opposition symbolized by a stylized spectral figure occasionally drawn on walls or machinery. Capitalist conglomerates with names like "Solar Empire" and private space navies.

 

(iii) Philosophical debate between scientific materialists and Sol-worshippers. New art forms in low gravity environments. Speculative literature about an alternative history in which, although space was probed, humanity itself remained Earth-bound in the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries.

(iv) Large-scale industrial production, economic slumps and military conflicts. Continued co-existence of wealth and poverty although it is technologically possible to produce abundance for all.

(v)  A novel describing a successful workers' revolution in the industrial centers of Earth, Callisto, Titan, Rhea and Europa. Socialist Parties in these centers uniting Bolshevik revolutionaries and "karma yogis" against the exploitation of humanity and the destruction of the Solar environment. Sympathetic characters on both sides of the conflict. Scientists who try to maintain their research while ignoring political controversies as much as possible. Revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries who respect science and do not try to annex asteroids occupied only by astronomers, physicists etc. Others unleashing unnecessary destruction.

(vi) Flight of capitalists in self-sustaining mobile environments towards the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud. The capitalists and their followers believe that the successful revolutionaries will fight among themselves and that this conflict will be resolved by the imposition of a dictatorship and an end to all freedom in the Inner System.

(vii) Further works showing an emancipated society in the Inner System and the continued struggles and achievements of free enterprisers in the space between Sol and Proxima Centauri. Space is big enough for diverse civilizations that no longer interact. Humanity becomes more than one species.   

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.