I got a really cool Christmas present this year. ‘The Past Through Tomorrow’ is a collection of short stories and novels from Robert A. Heinlein, who should need no introduction if you’re a fan of science fiction. It’s not in print anymore, which makes this book something of a collectible. It chronicles what John W. Campbell, the editor of the magazine Astounding Science Fiction which published many of these stories, called the ‘future history.’ These stories all take place against the backdrop of an imagined future for America and the world, starting with small beginnings.

The first story, ‘Life-Line,’ is about a man who invents a device that can predict the exact moment that you will die. This is the first distinction between our world and Heinlein’s future history. I’m not sure what effect this device will have on the future stories, if any, but it does give great insight into how Heinlein thinks. The story focuses on the main character, Dr. Pinero, struggling against the dogmatism of the scientific community as they try to discredit his discovery. He does himself few favors in this regard, but ultimately is able to convince the world that his device does indeed predict the future, largely by brute force. He makes a wager with the academy that tries to discredit him by recording the death dates of all the board members and sealing them away in envelops to be opened when they die. In the end, Dr. Pinero’s machine is destroyed by a group of thugs hired to kill him by a group of life insurance companies who’ve lost all their business to Pinero’s machine. Pinero accepts his death with a lot more dignity than someone who wouldn’t have seen it coming, I think. The board members all burn their envelopes, deciding that kind of information is too dangerous, and the story ends.

I don’t feel too bad spoiling the first story since you’ll probably see it coming as soon as Pinero does. I don’t think it’ll have too much impact on the future history, especially since it was such a nice round story with no loose threads. Maybe I’m wrong. The second story though is a lot more interesting and has far reaching implications. In ‘The Roads Must Roll’ America has adopted a system of moving superhighways that act like conveyor belts for people. It’s a really cool concept where the first road gets you up to speed for the second road, then the second road is a little faster, getting you up to speed to step onto the third road, and before you know it you’re walking at a hundred miles per hour. It’s safe, free transportation across the entire continent. The engineering is sound. The people who run it however … not so much. Utilitarian doctrine takes over as those who keep the roads rolling realize they have the power to run the country. Without them, the economy that has sprung up around and within the roads will grind to a halt, and millions will starve. As they serve the greatest function in the economy, they see it as only their right to lord over others. It’s up to head engineer Gaines to find a way to keep the road rolling.

That’s about as far as I’ve gotten. Heinlein’s style is interesting, a mix of top down narration about the state of the world and nitty gritty character perspectives. My only complaint so far is that I have trouble following sometimes because he often presents things in a much older style than I’m used to. In some ways, his writing feels more dated than the novels I’ve read from the 1930s, even though what I’ve read so far is from the late 50s and early 60s. I’m not sure how that happened, but it definitely throws me off every once in a while. Hemingway used far fewer anachronisms I guess. This phrasing for example:

“There Gaines stopped, short of the walkway, turned, and kept his eyes on the wall beyond the stationary walkway. He picked out some landmark, or sign, and did an Eliza-crossing-the-ice back to the walkway.”

He seems to be crossing the moving roadways here, which seems like it would take quite a bit of poise to pull off very quickly at all, but I have no idea what an Eliza-crossing-the-ice means. This kind of thing pops up every once in a while and it makes me wonder if what I write will be incomprehensible a hundred years from now. Maybe if I used more contemporary lingo it would be … I’m tempted to make a rizz joke but that would just be silly wouldn’t it?

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley