alternative future n.
SF Criticism
Time Travel
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1932 Advertiser (Adelaide, Australia) 29 Dec. 6/5
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Similarly, tell any average crowd of even modern girls to marry and be happy, and what else will be the reply—candor being assumed and required—of 99 in every 100 of them? Still, there is the exceptional 1 in 100 who aspires to a ‘career’? These things have to be tackled early. Many, even allowing that it is but a second-best in life, might be disposed to start training for it, if once assured that marriage is not for them. But how are they to know? The glimpse of alternative future lives, given to the heroine in that fascinating play ‘Eyes Of Youth’, is not to be bought in real life.
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1939
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C. L. Moore
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It had happened too quickly for wonder—he was not even thinking as he opened his eyes and looked into the cube where Marta’s gaze had met him a moment before. And then a great tide of awe and wonder came washing up into his consciousness, and he knew that Ashley had been right. There was an alternative future. There comes a point beyond which bewilderment and shock no longer affect the human brain, and Bill was outside wondering now, or groping for logical explanations. He only knew that he stood here staring into the cube from which Marta’s eyes had smiled at him so short an instant ago— They were still Marta’s eyes, deep-colored in a boy face almost Bill’s own, feature for feature, under a cap of blue steel. Somehow that other future had come to him, too.
Greater Than Gods in Astounding Science-Fiction July 144/2 -
1941
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Alfred Bester
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A man enters a house and wonders whether to go upstairs or downstairs. He doesn’t know it, but if he goes up he'll meet a girl whom he'll marry and if he goes down he'll meet a man who'll murder him. Now at the moment he enters the house and wonders which to do, there are two alternatively possible futures awaiting him—murder or marriage. His choice decides which of those futures he shall enter and make real for himself, although in theory each alternative future may coexist and be real unto itself.
Probable Man in Astounding Science-Fiction July 88/2 -
1955
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Francis G. Rayer
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An alternative future must arise from the moment we change your past, giving new trends of development to your planet from that moment.
This Night No More in Nebula Science Fiction Sept. 102 -
1988
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Frederik Pohl
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I’m talking about something that could be possible, in some alternative future, if you see what I mean.
Waiting for the Olympians in Asimov’s Science Fiction Aug. 157 -
2013 Starburst Magazine (#395) Dec. 23
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While plot points remain vague, it is assumed that Wolverine is sent to the past to prevent a hellish alternative future where mutants are placed in internment camps.
Research requirements
antedating 1932
Research History
Fred Galvin submitted a cite from a 1983 reprint of C. L. Moore's 1939 "Greater than Gods"; Mike Christie verified it in the first publication.We would like cites of any date from other authors.
Last modified 2021-04-07 13:12:52
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