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.