future history n.

In any event, don’t abandon the cartoon strip idea altogether. An extended outline of future ‘history’ somewhat along the line of the first installment of ‘Zarnak’ would provide an excellent subject for one.

All Heinlein’s science-fiction is laid against a common background of a proposed future history of the world and of the United States.

The Sound of His Wings…has an SF tie-in through my ‘Future History’ chart without being tagged as ‘science fiction’.

Future histories tend to be chaotic. They grow from a common base, from individual stories with common assumptions; but each story must—to be fair to readers—stand by itself. The future history chronicled in the Known Space Series is as chaotic as real history.

These stories all follow a consistent pattern of future history.

This story appears to be part of a future history of mine, often called the Eight Worlds. It does share background, characters, and technology with earlier stories of mine, which is part of the future history tradition. What it doesn’t share is a chronology… Consider this a disclaimer, then. Steel Beach is not really part of the Eight Worlds future history. Or the Eight Worlds is not really a future history, since that implies an orderly progression of events.

Although it is set in the same nada -continuum future history as his early short stories, it does not share their headlong nervy rush and the crammed exotica of their cyberpunkish scenarios.

Before Sputnik, First SF had thrived in a native habitat… Afterwards, new versions of sf, new conversations, began to collide with the dying gabfest of Future History, and First SF sporulated into a series of loose, overlapping genres.

This idea that we are poor judges of future events is key to moral decision-making. It’s worth pointing out, for example, that while 3 billion people died on Judgment Day, approximately 2.8 billion people survived. Future history records that John Connor will lead them to a possible victory over Skynet.