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Acolyte, v. 3, issue 2, whole no. 11, Summer 1945
Page 6
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Another frequent secondary motivation is found in much of the very best science-fiction yet written. The author postulates some fantastic happening or group of happenings, then proceeds to depict realistically just how people would behave under these artificially set-up conditions. A wide variety of postulations have been developed in this manner. One of the very best of this type is Deluge (and its companion volume, Dawn) by S. Fowler Wright, wherein the author imagines that virtually the entire earth is flooded by the sea, then graphically follows the lives of a handful of survivors in an unflooded bit of England. Close to these in quality is D. E. Stevenson's gripping A World in Spell, in which Earth's population is wiped out, save for a handful of people in a trans-Atlantic strato-clipper. Herbert Best's The Twenty-Fifth Hour postulates a world war in which mutual destructiveness brings about a complete collapse of civilization, and follows the handful of survivors in their drift towards savagery. Similar to this last, and of almost equal quality is L. Ron Hubbard's Final Blackout. The previously mentioned Woman Alive is one of the lesser ranking items in this classification, as are a vast number of the earlier pulp science-fiction tales. Among the best of these last might be mentioned the Balmer and Wylie pair, When Worlds Collide and After Worlds Collide. It should be noted, however, that extremely few of these earlier pulp stf yarns meet acceptable literary standards. One of the most fascinating of all secondary motivations is that of elaborate "histories" of the future, a field which has as yet just barely been touched. In this type, the author painstakingly draws up a "history" of coming centuries and millenia, basing it carefully on the present, and uses this outline as a guide for a group or series of related or semi-related stories. It is easy to see that such a project will gain vastly in the verisimilitude over the more conventional "future" tale, since the building up of the background is carried on uninterruptedly in all of the component stories, and in addition the author has his "facts" much more firmly fixed in his own mind than he could otherwise. The chief exponent, and perhaps originator, of this method is Robert Heinlein, all of whose stories published under his own name fit into his history somewhere. (A portion of the chart on which Heinlein's stories are based appeared in the May 1941 issue of Astounding Science-Fiction.) It is deeply to be regretted that none of Heinlein's major work has as yet achieved the dignity and performance of hard covers, but is scattered through the ephemeral files of a pulp magazine. Other writers have made more or less use of a similar technique, notably A. E. van Vogt in his series dealing with the Isher Empire (Weapon Shop group) and Isaac Asmiov in his "Foundation" series. But Heinlein stands alone as the one author who has written a sizeable group of unrelated stories covering episodes in several thousand years of the same future. Closely related to the Heinlein method is the more conventional 'history" of the future. In these stories we almost never find a group larger than a trilogy of novels, and usually just the single novel dealing with some particular aspect of some particular future. A large number of stories fall into this classification, including a heavy majority of the more worthwhile magazine efforts. Outstanding as an example is W. Olaf Stapledon's unsurpassable trilogy: Last Men in London, Last and First Men, and Starmaker. Most of the secondary motivations in scientificiton itself might logically be classified under future "history". Certainly such things as interplanetary and interstellar flight, atomic power, and extrapolations in virtually any science are almost invariably placed in future time, and are usually incidents of stories whose chief purpose seems to be the portrayal of a bit of history-that-has-not-yet-happened. Time travel does not necessarily come under this heading. -- 6 --
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Another frequent secondary motivation is found in much of the very best science-fiction yet written. The author postulates some fantastic happening or group of happenings, then proceeds to depict realistically just how people would behave under these artificially set-up conditions. A wide variety of postulations have been developed in this manner. One of the very best of this type is Deluge (and its companion volume, Dawn) by S. Fowler Wright, wherein the author imagines that virtually the entire earth is flooded by the sea, then graphically follows the lives of a handful of survivors in an unflooded bit of England. Close to these in quality is D. E. Stevenson's gripping A World in Spell, in which Earth's population is wiped out, save for a handful of people in a trans-Atlantic strato-clipper. Herbert Best's The Twenty-Fifth Hour postulates a world war in which mutual destructiveness brings about a complete collapse of civilization, and follows the handful of survivors in their drift towards savagery. Similar to this last, and of almost equal quality is L. Ron Hubbard's Final Blackout. The previously mentioned Woman Alive is one of the lesser ranking items in this classification, as are a vast number of the earlier pulp science-fiction tales. Among the best of these last might be mentioned the Balmer and Wylie pair, When Worlds Collide and After Worlds Collide. It should be noted, however, that extremely few of these earlier pulp stf yarns meet acceptable literary standards. One of the most fascinating of all secondary motivations is that of elaborate "histories" of the future, a field which has as yet just barely been touched. In this type, the author painstakingly draws up a "history" of coming centuries and millenia, basing it carefully on the present, and uses this outline as a guide for a group or series of related or semi-related stories. It is easy to see that such a project will gain vastly in the verisimilitude over the more conventional "future" tale, since the building up of the background is carried on uninterruptedly in all of the component stories, and in addition the author has his "facts" much more firmly fixed in his own mind than he could otherwise. The chief exponent, and perhaps originator, of this method is Robert Heinlein, all of whose stories published under his own name fit into his history somewhere. (A portion of the chart on which Heinlein's stories are based appeared in the May 1941 issue of Astounding Science-Fiction.) It is deeply to be regretted that none of Heinlein's major work has as yet achieved the dignity and performance of hard covers, but is scattered through the ephemeral files of a pulp magazine. Other writers have made more or less use of a similar technique, notably A. E. van Vogt in his series dealing with the Isher Empire (Weapon Shop group) and Isaac Asmiov in his "Foundation" series. But Heinlein stands alone as the one author who has written a sizeable group of unrelated stories covering episodes in several thousand years of the same future. Closely related to the Heinlein method is the more conventional 'history" of the future. In these stories we almost never find a group larger than a trilogy of novels, and usually just the single novel dealing with some particular aspect of some particular future. A large number of stories fall into this classification, including a heavy majority of the more worthwhile magazine efforts. Outstanding as an example is W. Olaf Stapledon's unsurpassable trilogy: Last Men in London, Last and First Men, and Starmaker. Most of the secondary motivations in scientificiton itself might logically be classified under future "history". Certainly such things as interplanetary and interstellar flight, atomic power, and extrapolations in virtually any science are almost invariably placed in future time, and are usually incidents of stories whose chief purpose seems to be the portrayal of a bit of history-that-has-not-yet-happened. Time travel does not necessarily come under this heading. -- 6 --
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