twenty-five other nations have the potential to build them in the next few
years.
But there is a possible sixth type. Earlier this year I attended a seminar
at one of the nation’s new think-factories. One of the questions discussed
was whether or not a “Doomsday Bomb” could be built — a single weapon which
would destroy all life of all sorts on this planet; one weapon, not an
all-out nuclear holocaust involving hundreds or thousands of ICBMs. No,
this was to be a world-wrecker of the sort Dr. E. E. Smith used to use in
his interstellar sagas back in the days when S-F magazines had bug-eyed
monsters on the cover and were considered lowbrow, childish, fantastic.
The conclusions reached were: Could the Doomsday Machine be built? — yes,
no question about it. What would it cost? — quite cheap. A seventh type
hardly seems necessary.
And that makes the grimness of “Solution Unsatisfactory” seem more like an
Oz book in which the most harrowing adventures always turn out happily.
“Searchlight” is almost pure extrapolation, almost no speculation. The
gadgets in it are either hardware on the shelf, or hardware which will soon
be on the shelf because nothing is involved but straight-forward
engineering development. “Life-Line” (my first story) is its opposite, a
story which is sheer speculation and either impossible or very highly
improbable, as the What-If postulate will never be solved — I think. I
hope. But the two stories are much alike in that neither depends on when it
was written nor when it is read. Both are independent of any particular
shape to history; they are timeless.
“Free Men” is another timeless story. As told, it looks like another “after
the blowup” story — but it is not. Although the place is nominally the
United States and the time (as shown by the gadgetry) is set in the
not-distant future, simply by changing names of persons and places and by
inserting other weapons and other gadgets this story could be any country
and any time in the past or future — or could even be on another planet and
concern a non-human race. But the story does apply here-and-now, so I told
it that way.
“Pandora’s Box” was the original title of an article researched and written
in 1949 for publication in 1950, the end of the half-century. Inscrutable
are the ways of editors: it appeared with the title ‘Where To?” and
purported to be a non-fiction prophecy concerning the year 2000 A.D. as
seen from 1950. (I agree that a science fiction writer should avoid
marihuana, prophecy, and time payments — but I was tempted by a soft
rustle.)
Our present editor decided to use this article, but suggested that it
should be updated. Authors who wish to stay in the business listen most
carefully to editors’ suggestions, even when they think an editor has been
out in the sun without a hat; I agreed.
And reread “Where To” and discovered that our editor was undeniably
correct; it needed updating. At least.
But at last I decided not to try to conceal my bloopers. Below is
reproduced, unchanged, my predictions of fifteen years back. But here and
there through the article I have inserted signs for footnotes — like this:
(z) — and these will be found at the end of the 1950 article . . . calling
attention to bloopers and then forthrightly excusing myself by
rationalizing how anyone, even Nostradamus, would have made the same
mistake . . . hedging my bets, in other cases, or chucking in brand-new
predictions and carefully laying them farther in the future than I am
likely to live . . . and, in some cases, crowing loudly about successful
predictions.
So —
WHERE TO?
(And Why We Didn’t Get There)
Most science fiction consists of big-muscled stories about adventures in
space, atomic wars, invasions by extra-terrestrials, and such. All very
well — but now we will take time out for a look at ordinary home life half
a century hence.
Except for tea leaves and other magical means, the only way to guess at the
future is by examining the present in the light of the past. Let’s go back