The Past Through Tomorrow (Magill’s Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature)
At a glance:
- Author: Robert A. Heinlein
- First Published: 1967
- Type of Work: Stories
- Type of Plot: Science fiction—future history
- Time of Work: Contemporary through a future with human colonization of the solar system and space exploration
- Setting: Various locations on Earth, the Moon, and colonized planets of the solar system
- Genres: Short fiction, Science fiction
- Subjects: Escapes, Future, Other worlds, Space flight or travel, Earth, Moon or moons, Transportation, Nuclear energy or power plants
- Locales: Earth, Moon, Solar system
The Plot
This collection of short stories examines aspects of a potential human future as Robert Heinlein envisioned it in his Future History. The term “future history” was first used to describe Heinlein’s work by John W. Campbell, Jr., editor of Astounding Science-Fiction (which became Analog in 1960).
This 830-page book contains twenty short stories and ends with the novelette Methuselah’s Children (1958; serial form, 1941). “Misfit” (1939), an example of Heinlein’s earliest work, is the story of the early career of the mathematical...
[The entire page is 939 words long]
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