¹ Two volumes in the five-volume series have appeared, edited by Falk, Richard A. and Black, Cyril E., Vol. 1: Trends and Patterns and Vol. 2: Wealth and Resources (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1969 and 1970, respectively)Google Scholar. The World Order Models Project is described in the World Law Fund Progress Report, Winter 1970 (Vol. 2, No. 1), pp. 1–8Google Scholar.

² The approximate time settings for our stories are as follows: “Un-man,” 2050; Stand on Zanzibar, 2010; Gather, Darknessl, 2305; “The War against the Moon,” 1992. The Space Merchantsand “The Five Way Secret Agent” are set circa the year 2000. The years 1984 and 1994 are, of course, the dates for 1984 and Teg's 1994.

³ The prototype of this genre was “When the Sleeper Wakes” by Wells, H. G., now conveniently available with its sequel, “A Story of the Days to Come,” and “The Time Machine,” in Three Prophetic Novels of H. G. Wells (New York: Dover Publications, 1960)Google Scholar. Modern authors owe to Wells not only this vision of the socioeconomic structure of future society but the physical setting in which social life takes place—the great city in which the masses carry out their daily tasks, tall, gleaming, and efficient in its commercial and governmental quarters but gaunt, dirty, and noisy in the homes and work places of the lower classes. The stresses of population density and lack of personalized associations that lead to urban pathologies of alienation and destruction also appear continuously in science fiction since Wells. See in general, Hillegas, Mark R., The Future as Nightmare: H. G. Wells and the Anti-Utopians (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967)Google Scholar.

⁴ Heinlein, Robert also uses this concept in Revolt in 2100 (New York: Signet Books, 1968)Google Scholar.

⁵ In a sense this is the fate of the Eloi people in “The Time Machine” by Wells. Over millions of years they have de-evolved into a childlike species used as cattle by a race of underground beings in turn descended from the labouring class. For other examples of affluent stagnation see Clarke, Arthur C., The City and the Stars (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1956)Google Scholar; Vonnegut, Kurt Jar, Player Piano (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1952)Google Scholar; and Reynolds, Mack, “Utopian,” in Harrison, Harry, Ed., The Year 2000: An Anthology (Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday & Co., 1970), pp. 91–110Google Scholar.

⁶ An interesting variation on this theme has cropped up recently in the pages of a European pulp space adventure series being translated for the United States market: Schemer, K. H. and En sting, Walter, Perry Roan (New York: Ace Books, 1969)Google Scholar. In this multi volume work, Roan, a member of the United States Space Force, makes contact with surviving members of an ancient galactic civilization who have wrecked their craft on the moon. In a burst of altruism he realizes that the technologically advanced gadgetry on the alien craft must never fall into the hands of any one Earth nation, including his own, as the other states would react with immediate preventive nuclear war. Roan decides to establish a neutral Third Force in the Gobi Desert to serve as the lightning rod for international tension. The scheme works as the (usual) big three powers agree to cooperate to eliminate Roan as a menace to their rivalries and then come to perceive that forced cooperation might be a good thing.

⁷ Offer, Alvin, Future Shock (New York: Random House, 1970)Google Scholar.

⁸ Interestingly, a claim is made in 1984 that Oceania has neither capital nor central government. Cohesion for the empire is provided by the ideology of Bingo (English Socialism). Another example of a decentralized, quasi-anarchical world order guided, as in Teg's 1994and “The War against the Moon,” by a benevolent, technocratic elite may be found in two related stories by Kipling, Ruddy: “As Easy as A.B.C.,” in Conklin, Groff, Ed., 17 X Infinity (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1963), pp. 172–201Google Scholar, and “With the Night Mail: A Story of 2000 A.D.,” in Knight, Damson, Ed., 100 Years of Science Fiction (New York: Simon & Chester, 1968), pp. 13–51Google Scholar. (A.B.C. is the Aerial Board of Control, a group of people who do whatever is necessary to maintain the all-important lines of air traffic open, including a very loose administration of any areas that wish to come under their control.) Also notable in this vein are Wells, H. G., “Men Like Gods,” in 28 Science Fiction Stories of H. G. Wells (New York: Dover Publications, 1952), pp. 1–268Google Scholar; Brown, James Coke, The Troika Incident: A Tetralogue in Two Parts (Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday & Co., 1970)Google Scholar; and Russell, Eric Frank, “And Then There Were None,” in Sloane, William, ed., Stories for Tomorrow: An Anthology of Modern Science Fiction (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1954), pp. 425–490Google Scholar.

⁹ The novel of global disaster, whether nuclear or natural, is a popular subgenre in science fiction. The aftermath usually consists of the survivors of the war, flood, new ice age, or whatever attempting to form new societies and preserve any technical knowledge that remains. Prominent examples of this alternative future are in Miller, Walter M. Jr, A Canticle for Leibowitz (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1960)Google Scholar; and Aldiss, Brian, Barefoot in the Head: A European Fantasia (Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday & Co., 1970)Google Scholar.

¹⁰ On this period in science fiction history, see Moskowitz, Sam, ed., Science Fiction by Gaslight: A History and Anthology of Science Fiction in the Popular Magazines, 1891–1911 (Cleveland: World Publishing Co., 1968)Google Scholar, and Under the Moons of Mars: A History and Anthology of the “Scientific Romance” in the Munsey Magazines, 1912–1920 (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970)Google Scholar.

¹¹ de Camp, L. Sprague, “Imaginative Fiction and Creative Imagination,” in Bretnor, Reginald, ed., Modern Science Fiction: Its Meaning and Its Future (New York: Coward-McCann, 1953), pp. 141–152Google Scholar; Bloch, Robert, “Imagination and Modern Social Criticism,” in Davenport, Basil, ed., The Science Fiction Novel: Imagination and Social Criticism (Chicago: Advent: Publishers, 1964), pp. 126–155Google Scholar; Kelley, R. Gordon, “Ideology in Some Modern Science Fiction Novels,” Journal of Popular Culture, Fall 1968 (Vol. 2, No. 2), pp. 211–227CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Perhaps because so much of modern science fiction originates in the Englishspeaking world in general, and the United States in particular, a certain parochialism emerges. The cultural assumptions, dramatic problems, and even last names of characters commonly reflect an Anglo-Saxon background.

¹² Moskowitz, Sam, in Seeders of Tomorrow: Masters of Modern Science Fiction (New York: Ballantine Books, 1967)Google Scholar, has noted:

Since the heyday of, first, Heinlein and then van Vogt, the bulk of modern science fiction has visualized governments of the future as outright dictatorships, religious dictatorships, military dictatorships, or unvarnished monarchies. There has been precious little utopianism, let alone liberalism. [P. 222.]

See also Amis, Kingsley, New Maps of Hell: A Survey of Science Fiction (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1960), pp. 90Google Scholar, 95–110, and Bloch, in Davenport, pp. 139–141.

¹³ While no statistics are available on this, it appears that in the last two decades a greater number of writers with a literary background have taken up science fiction as a convenient format in which to express their feelings about present society and its trends. This may account for the increased attempts at stylistic experimentation in the literature as well as the greater variety of societal models consciously different from present and historical examples. See, for example, Guin, Ursula K. Le, The Left Hand of Darkness (New York: Walker & Co., 1969)Google Scholar (a unisexual human society); Russ, Joanna, And Chaos Died (New York: Ace Publishers, 1970)Google Scholar (a society based on psychic powers); Spinrad, Norman, Bug Jack Barron (New York: Walker & Co., 1969)Google Scholar; Leiber, Fritz, A Specter is Haunting Texas (New York: Walker & Co., 1969)Google Scholar.

¹⁴ For example, David, Henry in “Assumptions about Man and Society and Historical Constructs in Futures Research,” Futures, 09 1970 (Vol. 2, No. 3), pp. 222–230CrossRefGoogle Scholar, charges forecasters with being more explicit about the assumptions they make regarding human nature and the historical analogies they use to extrapolate trends; Levy, Marion J. Jr, “Our Ever and Future Jungle,” World Politics, 01 1970 (Vol. 22, No. 2), pp. 301–327CrossRefGoogle Scholar, criticizes Herman Kahn and Anthony Wiener's The Year 2000for lacking imagination and restating the obvious; and Modelski, George, “The Promise of Geocentric Politics,” World Politics, 07 1970 (Vol. 22, No. 4), pp. 617–635CrossRefGoogle Scholar, complains of the status quo bias inherent in theories of international relations that assume the continuing reality of the nation-state system.

¹⁵ Given its limitations I believe that a stimulating collection of scenarios suitable for transformation into good science fiction plots is available in Kahn, Herman and Wiener, Anthony J., The Year 2000: A Framework for Speculation on the Next Thirty-Three Years (New York: Macmillan Co., 1967), pp. 248–385Google Scholar (especially the “canonical variations” on the “standard world”). Other valuable works on possibilities for change in the present international system include Falk, Richard A., The Status of Law in International Society (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1969)Google Scholar; Galtung, Johan, “On the Future of the International System,” Journal of Peace Research, 1967 (Vol. 4, No. 4), pp. 305–333CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Russett, Bruce M., “The Ecology of Future International Politics,” International Studies Quarterly, 03 1967 (Vol. 11, No. 1), pp. 12–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁶ The utility of positing nonexistent world models in the study of comparative international systems and their processes of macrochange is noted by Falk, in “The Interplay of Westphalia and Charter Conceptions of International Legal Order,” The Future of the International Legal Order, Vol. I, p. 36Google Scholar, though the editors also state in their introduction to the series that the project is based on the assumption “that there would be no major change in the structure of international society during the period that concerns us” (p. vii).

¹⁷ On this historical role of science fiction see Polak, Fred L., The Image of the Future: Enlightening the Past, Orientating the Present, Forecasting the Future (2 vols.; Dobbs Ferry, N.Y: Oceana Publications, 1961)Google Scholar; Franklin, H. Bruce, Future Perfect: American Science Fiction of the Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966)Google Scholar; Philmus, Robert M., Into the Unknown: The Evolution of Science Fiction from Francis Godwin to H. G. Wells (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970)Google Scholar; Lois, and Rose, Stephen, The Shattered Ring: Science Fiction and the Quest for Meaning (Richmond, Va: John Knox, 1970)Google Scholar; Plank, Robert, The Emotional Significance of Imaginary Beings: A Study of the Interaction between Psychopathology, Literature and Reality in the Modern World (Springfield, Ill: Charles C. Thomas, Publisher, 1968)Google Scholar; Nicolson, Marjorie Hope, Voyages to the Moon (New York: Macmillan Co., 1960)Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Brunner, John, author of Stand on Zanzibar, in “The Genesis of Stand on Zanzibar and Digressions into the Remainder of Its Pentateuch,” Extrapolation, 05 1970 (Vol. 11, No. 2)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, has described his procedure in this manner:

Two years of causal research seemed to have given me a kind of sense of pattern about the. world I wanted to describe, such that I didn't need details, only an awareness of the point which certain discernible trends might have reached by my—entirely arbitrary—future date of 2010. [P. 35.]

In futurology development of the technique of the cross-impact matrix is also an attempt to assess the possible outcomes of sets of trends. See Gordon, T. J. and Hayward, H., “Initial Experiments with the Cross Impact Matrix of Forecasting,” Futures, 12 1968 (Vol. 1, No. 2), pp. 100–116CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁹ The reader who has decided to take the plunge into science fiction need not dispair at where to start. Several anthologies of the “best” science fiction of the year are issued annually, particularly Wollheim, Donald A. and Carr, Terry, eds., World's Best Science Fiction (New York: Ace Publishers)Google Scholar, and Merril, Judith, ed., The Year's Best S.F (New York: Dell Publishing Co.)Google Scholar. Each year the Science Fiction Writers of America award the Nebula for best novel and shorter stories; the latter are collected as Nebula Award Stories (Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday & Co.). Science Fiction Writers of America is also compiling a multivolume series on the best science fiction of which volume one has appeared: Silverberg, Robert, ed., The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: The Greatest Science Fiction Stories of All Time Chosen by the Science Fiction Writers of America (Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday & Co., 1970)Google Scholar. A useful bibliographic tool is Strauss, Edwin S., comp., Index to the Science Fiction Magazines: 1951–1965 (Cambridge, Mass: New England Science Fiction Association, 1966)Google Scholar, with annual supplements. The recent formation of a Science Fiction Research Association should also lead to an increased body of critical literature about science fiction.