Future history
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- This article focuses on future histories in general. For Robert A. Heinlein's series of short stories and novels, see Future History.
A future history is a postulated history of the future that some science fiction authors construct as a common background for fiction. Sometimes the author publishes a timeline of events in the history, while other times the reader can reconstruct the order of the stories from information provided therein. The term appears to have been coined by John W. Campbell, Jr., the editor of Astounding Science Fiction, in the February 1941 issue of that magazine, in reference to Robert A. Heinlein's Future History. Neil R. Jones is generally credited as the first author to create a future history.[1]
A set of stories which share a backdrop but are not really concerned with the sequence of history in their universe are rarely considered future histories. For example, neither Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga nor George R. R. Martin's 1970s short stories which share a backdrop are generally considered future histories. Standalone stories which trace an arc of history are rarely considered future histories. For example, Walter M. Miller Jr.'s A Canticle for Leibowitz is not generally considered a future history.
Earlier, some works were published which constituted "future history" in a more literal sense - i.e., stories or whole books purporting to be excerpts of a history book from the future and which are written in the form of a history book - i.e., having no personal protagonists but rather describing the development of nations and socieities over decades and centuries. Such were Jack London's "The Unparalleled Invasion" (1914) describing a devastating war between the USA and China in 1975, ending with a complete genocide of the Chinese, which the writer described as "an excerpt from a history book". So is H.G. Wells' "The Shape of Things to Come" (1933), written in the form of a history book published in the year 2106 and - in the manner of a real history book - continaing numerous footnotes and references to the works of (mostly ficititious) prominent historians of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries.
Asimov retained in part this earlier form of Future Histroy in prefacing each of The Foundation Series stories by a pseudo-historical quotation from the "Encyclopedia Galactica". The same prcatice was followed by later writers, such as Jerry Pournelle in his own future history series
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[edit] Notable future histories
Other notable future histories:
- Poul Anderson's two future histories: The Psychotechnic League and his later Technic History (see Nicholas van Rijn, Dominic Flandry).
- Frank Herbert's Dune universe.
- Larry Niven's Known Space series.
- Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium series.
- Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men and its sequels.
- The Strugatsky brothers' Noon Universe.
- Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality of Mankind.
- Neil R. Jones's Professor Jameson series (1931 - 1989)
- H. Beam Piper's Terro-Human Future History.
- C. J. Cherryh's Alliance-Union universe
- Paul McAuley's Four Hundred Billion Stars series (1988).
- Isaac Asimov's Robots, Empire, and Foundation stories (the link between many of the storeis are a retcon).
- Beginning with his Beloved Son, many of the science fiction novels of George Turner.
- Octavia Butler's Patternist series.
- Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun.
- All Tomorrows by Nemo Ramjet, at http://www.nemoramjet.com/atindex.html
[edit] Key attributes
Unlike alternate history, where alternative outcomes are ascribed to past events; future history postulates certain outcomes to future events.
One problem with future history science fiction is that it will date and be overtaken by real historical events (for instance, H. Beam Piper's future history, which included a nuclear war in 1973, and much of the future history of Star Trek). There are several ways this is dealt with.
First, some authors set their stories in an indefinite future, often in a society where the current calendar has been disrupted due to a societal collapse or undergone some form of distortion due to the impact of technology. Related to the first, some stories are set in the very remote future and only deal with the author's contemporary history in a sketchy fashion, if at all (e.g. the original Foundation Trilogy by Asimov.).
In other cases, such as the Star Trek universe, the merging of the fictional history and the known history is done through extensive use of retroactive continuity. In yet other cases such as the Doctor Who television series and the fiction based on it, much use is made of secret history, in which the events that take place are largely secret and not known to the general public.
As with Heinlein, some authors simply write a detailed future history and accept the fact that events will overtake it, making the sequence into a de facto alternate history.
And lastly, some writers formally transform their future histories into alternate history, once they had been overtaken by envents. For example, Poul Anderson started The Psychotechnic League history in the eatly 1950s, assuming a nuclear war in 1958 - then a future date. When it was republished in the 1980s, a new forward was added explaining how that history's timeline diverged from ours and led to war.
[edit] References
- ^ Ashley, M. (April, 1989). The Immortal Professor, Astro Adventures No. 7, p. 6.
