be too specific.”
—L. Sprague de Camp
The stories in this and later volumes of this series were not written as prophecy, nor as history. The author would be much surprised if any one of them turned out to be close enough to future events to be classified as successful prophecy.
They are of the “What-would-happen-if—” sort, in which the “if,” the basic postulate of each story, is some possible change in human environment latent in our present-day technology or culture. Sometimes the possibility is quite remote; sometimes the postulated possibility is almost a certainty, as in the stories concerned with interplanetary flight.
The pseudo-history of the immediate future outlined in the chart you will find in this volume makes it appear that I was seriously attempting prophecy. The appearance is illusory; the chart was worked up, a bit at a time, to keep me from stumbling as I added new stories. It was originally a large wall chart in my study, to which I added penciled notes from time to time. This was an idea I had gotten from Mr. Sinclair Lewis, who is alleged to maintain charts, files, notes and even very detailed maps of his fictional state of Winnemac and its leading city, Zenith. Mr. Lewis has managed to make Zenith and its citizens more real to more people than any real midwestern city of comparable size. I figured that a technique which was good for Mr. Lewis would certainly be good for me; I swiped the idea. I am glad to be able to acknowledge publicly my debt.
In 1940, I showed the chart to John W. Campbell, Jr.; he insisted on publishing it. From then on I was stuck with it; it became increasingly difficult to avoid fitting a story into the chart. I was forced to invent several pen names for use when I had a story in mind which was entirely incompatible with the assumed “history.” By now I hardly need the chart; the fictional future history embodied in it is at least as real to me as Plymouth Rock.
This series was started ten years ago; this past decade has been as revolutionary in technology as the century which preceded it. Increasingly each year the wild predictions of science-fiction writers are made tame by the daily papers. In my chart you will find “booster guns” assigned to one hundred years in the future—but the Germans designed such guns during World War II. The chart gives 1978 as the date of the first rocket to the Moon; I will give anyone odds that 1978 is the wrong date, but I will not bet that it will not be sooner.
Details change; the drama continues. Technology races ahead while people remain stubbornly the same. Recently I counted fourteen different sorts of astrology magazines on one newsstand—but not one magazine on astronomy. There were only three hundred years from Plymouth Rock to atomic power; there are still more outhouses than flush toilets in the United States, the land of inside plumbing. And the ratio will not have changed much on the day when men first walk the silent face of the Moon. The anomalies of the Power Age are more curious than its wonders.
But it is a great and wonderful age, the most wonderful this giddy planet has yet seen. It is sometimes comic, too often tragic, and always wonderful. Our wildest dreams of the future will be surpassed by what lies in front of us. Come bad, come good, I want to take part in the show as long as possible.
— Robert A. Heinlein
Colorado Springs, Colo.
5 May 1949
Life-Line
The chairman rapped loudly for order. Gradually the catcalls and boos died away as several self-appointed sergeants-at-arms persuaded a few hot-headed individuals to sit down. The speaker on the rostrum by the chairman seemed unaware of the disturbance. His bland, faintly insolent face was impassive. The chairman turned to the speaker, and addressed him, in a voice in which anger and annoyance were barely restrained.
“Doctor Pinero,”—the “Doctor” was faintly stressed—“I must apologize to you for the unseemly outburst
—L. Sprague de Camp
The stories in this and later volumes of this series were not written as prophecy, nor as history. The author would be much surprised if any one of them turned out to be close enough to future events to be classified as successful prophecy.
They are of the “What-would-happen-if—” sort, in which the “if,” the basic postulate of each story, is some possible change in human environment latent in our present-day technology or culture. Sometimes the possibility is quite remote; sometimes the postulated possibility is almost a certainty, as in the stories concerned with interplanetary flight.
The pseudo-history of the immediate future outlined in the chart you will find in this volume makes it appear that I was seriously attempting prophecy. The appearance is illusory; the chart was worked up, a bit at a time, to keep me from stumbling as I added new stories. It was originally a large wall chart in my study, to which I added penciled notes from time to time. This was an idea I had gotten from Mr. Sinclair Lewis, who is alleged to maintain charts, files, notes and even very detailed maps of his fictional state of Winnemac and its leading city, Zenith. Mr. Lewis has managed to make Zenith and its citizens more real to more people than any real midwestern city of comparable size. I figured that a technique which was good for Mr. Lewis would certainly be good for me; I swiped the idea. I am glad to be able to acknowledge publicly my debt.
In 1940, I showed the chart to John W. Campbell, Jr.; he insisted on publishing it. From then on I was stuck with it; it became increasingly difficult to avoid fitting a story into the chart. I was forced to invent several pen names for use when I had a story in mind which was entirely incompatible with the assumed “history.” By now I hardly need the chart; the fictional future history embodied in it is at least as real to me as Plymouth Rock.
This series was started ten years ago; this past decade has been as revolutionary in technology as the century which preceded it. Increasingly each year the wild predictions of science-fiction writers are made tame by the daily papers. In my chart you will find “booster guns” assigned to one hundred years in the future—but the Germans designed such guns during World War II. The chart gives 1978 as the date of the first rocket to the Moon; I will give anyone odds that 1978 is the wrong date, but I will not bet that it will not be sooner.
Details change; the drama continues. Technology races ahead while people remain stubbornly the same. Recently I counted fourteen different sorts of astrology magazines on one newsstand—but not one magazine on astronomy. There were only three hundred years from Plymouth Rock to atomic power; there are still more outhouses than flush toilets in the United States, the land of inside plumbing. And the ratio will not have changed much on the day when men first walk the silent face of the Moon. The anomalies of the Power Age are more curious than its wonders.
But it is a great and wonderful age, the most wonderful this giddy planet has yet seen. It is sometimes comic, too often tragic, and always wonderful. Our wildest dreams of the future will be surpassed by what lies in front of us. Come bad, come good, I want to take part in the show as long as possible.
— Robert A. Heinlein
Colorado Springs, Colo.
5 May 1949
Life-Line
The chairman rapped loudly for order. Gradually the catcalls and boos died away as several self-appointed sergeants-at-arms persuaded a few hot-headed individuals to sit down. The speaker on the rostrum by the chairman seemed unaware of the disturbance. His bland, faintly insolent face was impassive. The chairman turned to the speaker, and addressed him, in a voice in which anger and annoyance were barely restrained.
“Doctor Pinero,”—the “Doctor” was faintly stressed—“I must apologize to you for the unseemly outburst
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