This post is brought to you by The Cryo Game and Other Stories by Jack Mackenzie. This collection of Science Fiction tales features Mackenzie’s special brand of ideas with robots, men stranded on far planets, cadets in the Academy and the mystery in space called “Roadblock”. From the events of H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine told from the Morlocks’ point-of-view, to a look at the Beatles if they had never become famous. He also gives us a brain in a jar who solves galactic mysteries, a space jockey accused of murdering a very rich passenger, each tale is an entertainment.
They say you should never put a date in your title. Frederik Pohl (The Best of C. M. Kornbluth, 1976) put it this way in his introduction to “The Rocket of 1955”:
It is always a mistake to put a date on a science-fiction story, and now that 1955 is embalmed in history we know that the first attempt at space travel didn’t go this way at all. But when it was written—when Cyril was in his teens, World War II was just settling into the routine of grinding human beings into garbage, and space travel was still only a crazy science-fiction idea—it might have.
“The Rocket Of 1955” is going to seem pretty dated every year after 1955. Warren Publications found this when they named their comic 1984, and then it lasted past that date and became 1994. (You gotta think ahead!) Famous titles include 1984, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Jules Verne’s “Paris in the 20th Century”, which might have been written by his son. Year titles for 2026 include “August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains” from Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles (1951). Sorry, Ray. We haven’t made it to Mars yet.
Science Fiction writers, of course, don’t expect their stories to happen by that date. Or at all, for that matter. They just need something in the title that suggests the future. Whether that’s ten years from now, or fifty, or a hundred, or a thousand…. The longer dates are better because who thinks we will be reading any of this trash in 3000 A. D. (or reading at all!) Even in 2026 you can see a society that is moving away from the printed word in favor of other media.
Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (1888) by Edward Bellamy does the old Buck Rogers trick of freezing a man so he can awaken in a future world. Bellamy’s 2000 A. D. has America a Socialist utopia. Better working conditions with shorter work weeks, retirement at 45, public food and art. Well, it might have been more wishful thinking than prediction…
“Christmas 200,000 B.C.” (The Wolf’s Long Howl, 1899) by Stanley Waterloo is a caveman’s Christmas with characters named Red Lips, Wolf and Yellow Hair. Rather a cartoonist tale of ugg-speech and Victorian morals. I suppose picking times log past won’t really be a problem until we get a good time machine.
A Round Trip to the Year 2000 (The Argosy, July-November 1903) by William Wallace Cook has a suspected criminal flee to the future in a time machine. The world he finds there surprises him for it is inhabited by robots. Cook predates several more familiar robot stories like Karl Capek’s “R. U. R.”
“With the Night Mail: A Story of 2000 A.D.” (McClure’s, November 1905 and The Windsor Magazine, December 1905) by Rudyard Kipling is one of two stories about the future that Kipling wrote, inventing everything from future slang to mail delivery by dirigible. The other is “Easy as A.B.C”
Ralph 124C 41+: A Romance of the Year 2660 (Modern Electrics, April 1911-March 1912) by Hugo Gernsback (future editor of Amazing Stories) is a clunky, junky novel of the future, filled with gadgets and rather Victorian sex appeal. It does predict some real inventions including the jukebox, microfilm. television, spaceflight and solar power. For more, go here.
The War of the Worlds: A Tale of the Year 2,000 A.D. (1914) written and illustrated by Frederick Robinson was a privately printed volume. It features all the good stuff like Imperialism and Martian invasions. E. F. Bleiler called it “ludicrously bad”. The similarity in title to the Wells’ novel seems odd. His artwork ain’t bad though.
“June 6, 2016” (Collier’s, April 22, 1916) by George Allan England is a look forward a hundred years but England is still stuck in the past. For more on this story, go here.
“Gulliver, 3000 A.D.” (Wonder Stories, May 1933) by Leslie F. Stone takes the Gulliver story forward by moving it to Jupiter. The Earthmen are captured by tiny men on the planet’s surface. Two warring factions try to use the giants to win their war against each other.
“The Rocket of 1955” (Escape #2, August 1939, reprinted in Stirring Science Stories, April 1941 and Worlds Beyond, February 1951) by C. M. Kornbluth shows how the mob mentality will destroy space exploration.
“West Point 3000 A.D.” (Amazing Stories, November December 1940) by Manly Wade Wellman shows us what the famous military academy will look like in a thousand and sixty years. Oddly, not that much different from 1940. Wellman’s SF is forgotten all too often because his Horror/Fantasy was so good.
“Crisis 1999” (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, August 1949) by Fredric Brown is a Mystery set in the near future. I offered it as an example of a playfair Mystery before Isaac Asimov but it isn’t about murder. There is nobody named Prince singing about it either.
Revolt in 2100 (1953) by Robert A. Heinlein is actually a story collection not a novel, though it is part of his “Future History” a set of connected stories. The revolt in question is against theocracy in the USA. Hmmmm….
Daybreak—2250 A.D. (1954) by Andre Norton is a post-apocalyptic novel featuring giant rats and savage humans. That’s only two hundred and twenty-five years from now so put it in your calendar. It was one of Norton’s first ACE doubles and still a mighty fine read.
” Predictions: 2001 A.D.” (Amazing Stories, April 1956) including Steve Allen, Philip Wylie and Robert A. Heinlein was a collection of prediction by comedians, politicians and SF writers on what 2001 would bring.
“New Year’s Eve—2000 A. D.” (Imaginative Tales, September 1957) by Robert Silverberg (as Ivar Jorgensen)
The Outward Urge (1959) (aka “The Troons of Space”) was John Wyndham’s prediction of space travel over the next century. It appeared in segments in New Worlds then reprints in the US with Virgil Finlay art.
“For All the Night: The Space Station A. D. 1994”) (New Worlds Science Fiction, April 1958 reprinted in Fantastic, November 1958)
“Idiot’s Delight: The Moon A. D. 2044”) (New Worlds Science Fiction, June 1958 reprinted in Fantastic, December 1958)
“Space Is a Province of Brazil: “Mars A. D. 2094”) (New Worlds Science Fiction, July 1958 reprinted in Fantastic, January 1959)
“The Thin-Gnat Voices: Venus A. D. 2144”) (New Worlds Science Fiction, September 1958 reprinted in Fantastic, February 1959)
“The Emptiness of Space: The Asteroids A. D. 2194” (New Worlds Science Fiction, November 1960 reprinted in Amazing Stories, January 1961)
“Murder, 1990” (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, October 1960) by C. B. Gilford is a murder set in the future and the unstoppable detection system that finds and punishes the criminal. For more on this story, go here.
“Day Million” ( SF Impulse, October 1966) by Frederik Pohl is a love story. The two very bizarre people of the future meet only once but it is still a romantic tale of great passion. Perhaps Pohl comes closest to predicting just how strange and un-20th Century the future will be.
“A Happy Day in 2381” (Nova 1, 1970) by Robert Silverberg is a portion of his novel The World Inside (1971) where humanity is crammed into gigantic skyscrapers. For a guy living in Canada, it is bizarre and terrifying. For people in Hong Kong, it might feel less unusual.
Los Angeles: A.D. 2017 (1971) by Philip Wylie is a prediction about LA in the future when the air is unbreathable because of pollution. Wylie throws out some new ways people might evolve culturally as well. (Though like George Allan England, he still clings to too much of the past.) For more on this story, go here.
“Zoo 2000” ( Zoo 2000, 1973) by Richard Curtis offers a look at the zoo of the year 2000. Somehow I don’t think the writers here predicted the sad state of zoos in the 21st Century. We never got space bugs, for instance.
Commune 2000 A.D. (1974) by Mack Reynolds, one of the few Socialist SF writers of the end of the century, who offers us a look at how communes might work in the future. Communes were popular among the Hippies in the late 60s and early 70s, so the date on this one doesn’t surprise me.
Conclusion
People outside SF often make a lot of noise about the predictive power of Science Fiction. Readers of the genre kinda smirk at this, knowing that authors are often commenting on their own times rather than true speculation about the future. Robots are about workers’ rights, the class struggle, Ray Bradbury’s firemen commented on censorship in the 1950s, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness is about gender politics, and Dune about environmental issues and religion, etc. Placing a date on a title is more of a suggestion of the future than an exact signpost. We will snicker when we watch old movies like Blade Runner or I, Robot that use dates now behind us. (I never got that flying car!)
I blame Jules Verne for this to be honest. Verne used patents for creating his fiction with an eye to making his stories set in a possible world. Hugo Gernsback expanded on this with plenty of gadget fiction. H. G. Wells could give a flying fig for how a Martian tripod machine actually worked. He was talking about Imperialism and Socialism and other Isms. The mechanical details were not the point. He wasn’t predicting that we would all be traveling in three-legged machines. The Vernian legacy gives SF this prediction label. Wells gave us a challenge to say something more.
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