Sunday 11 January 2015

The Campbell Future Historians

John W Campbell, Editor of Astounding, later Analog, Science Fiction, published:

Robert Heinlein's Future History;
Isaac Asimov's Robot stories;
Asimov's Foundation series;
James Blish's Okie series;
Poul Anderson's Polesotechnic League series.

Therefore, I call Heinlein, Asimov, Blish and Anderson the four Campbell future historians. Heinlein's direct successors as American future historians are Poul Anderson, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. There are other future historians but these six form a literary sequence.

Campbell:

published Heinlein's Time Chart, thus encouraging him to continue writing the Future History;

because the Foundation was guided by Seldon's psychohistorical predictions, advised Asimov to imagine an event that confounds the predictions;

because the Okies traded with the germanium-based Oc dollar, advised Blish to envisage the collapse of the germanium standard;

when asked by Anderson what might succeed mammals as they succeeded amphibians and reptiles, suggested the biological supercharger that enables Anderson's Ythrians to combine intelligence with flight in terrestroid conditions;

suggested the supermetals-covered remnant of a planet blasted by a supernova that became Anderson's Mirkheim.

Need I say more?

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