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} }) </script> </div> </form> </fieldset> <article class="entryArticle content STeditorial"> <header class="entryHeader icon-theme"> <h1 class="entryTitle">Far Future </h1> </header><p class='tagLine'>Entry updated 11 August 2018. Tagged: Theme.</p><div class="browsingBtns"> <span> <input class="button PNI previous" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/next.php?id=p&entry=far_future'" value="Prev" /> </span> <span> <input class="button PNI next" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/next.php?&entry=far_future'" value="Next" /> </span> <span> <input class="button PNI incoming" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/incoming.php?entry=far_future'" value="About This Entry" title="What links to the entry; contributor initials explained; how to cite; other information" /> </span> </div><p style='float:right; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:10px; position: relative; top: 3px;'> <a href='/gallery.php?id=138094.jpg' target='_blank'> <img src='https://x.sf-encyclopedia.com/gal/thumbs/138094.jpg' alt='pic'></a></p> <p>The dutch sociologist and historian Fred Polak (1907-1985), in <i>De toekomst is verleden tijd</i> ["The Future Is Past Time"] (<b>1955</b> 2vols; trans Elise Boulding as <i>The Image of the Future</i> <b>1961</b> 2vols; trans cut <b>1973</b>), identifies two distinct categories of images of the distant future, which he calls the "future of prophecy" and the "future of destiny". Prophets, although they refer to the future, are primarily concerned with the present: they issue warnings about the consequences of present actions and demand that other courses of action be adopted. Their images are images of the historical future which will grow out of human action in the present day (see <a href="/entry/near_future">Near Future</a>). To the second category of images, however, present concerns are usually irrelevant; these are images of the ultimate future, taking the imagination as far as it can reach. Such visions are related to <a href="/entry/eschatology">Eschatology</a> and often feature the <a href="/entry/end_of_the_world">End of the World</a>; others depict a world where everything has so changed as to have become virtually incomprehensible, or a world which has attained some ultimate <a href="/entry/utopias">Utopian</a> state of perfection.</p> <p>Scientifically inspired images of the far future could not come into being until the true age of the Earth and therefore the scope of possible change were understood – an understanding first popularized by Sir Charles Lyell (1797-1875) in <i>Principles of Geology</i> (<b>1830</b>). Even then it was not until the establishment of the theory of <a href="/entry/evolution">Evolution</a> that writers found a conceptual tool which made it possible for them to imagine the kinds of changes which might plausibly take place. W H <a href="/entry/hudson_w_h">Hudson</a>'s <i>A Crystal Age</i> (<b>1887</b>), which belongs to the utopian school, embraces an evolutionary philosophy of a curiously mystical kind, and such traces of mysticism are retained by very many representations of the far future. Most early images of the far future accepted estimates of the likely age of the Sun based on the tacit, natural but false assumption that its heat was produced by combustion; the far-future Earth is thus represented as a cold, dark and desolate place, ravaged by <a href="/entry/entropy">Entropy</a>, from which life is slowly disappearing. We find such imagery in H G <a href="/entry/wells_h_g">Wells</a>'s <i>The Time Machine</i> (<b>1895</b>), George C <a href="/entry/wallis_george_c">Wallis</a>'s "The Last Days of Earth" (July 1901 <i>The Harmsworth Magazine</i>) and William Hope <a href="/entry/hodgson_william_hope">Hodgson</a>'s <i>The House on the Borderland</i> (<b>1908</b>). Hodgson's <i>The Night Land</i> (<b>1912</b>) is bizarre as well as bleak, offering a phantasmagorical vision of a decaying world inherited by frightful <a href="/entry/monsters">Monsters</a> while humanity has retreated behind the defences of a <a href="/entry/keep">Keep</a>, the Last Redoubt. The optimistic far-future vision which concludes George Bernard <a href="/entry/shaw_george_bernard">Shaw</a>'s <i>Back to Methuselah</i> (<b>1921</b>; revs <b>1921</b>-<b>1945</b>) is predicated on the assumption that mind can and will cast off the confining shackles of matter. More elaborate but no less striking imagery is featured in the concluding section of Guy <a href="/entry/dent_guy">Dent</a>'s <i>Emperor of the If</i> (<b>1926</b>), in which our insane descendants are no longer human in form or ability but remain all too human in psychological terms. S Fowler <a href="/entry/wright_s_fowler">Wright</a>'s <i>The World Below</i> (incorporating <i>The Amphibians</i> [<b>1924</b>]; <b>1929</b>) is equally ambitious, and contrives to transcend the images of decay and desolation associated with so many other visions. These works were quickly followed by Olaf <a href="/entry/stapledon_olaf">Stapledon</a>'s monumental attempt to track the entire <a href="/entry/evolution">Evolutionary</a> future of mankind, <i>Last and First Men</i> (<b>1930</b>), partly based on a blueprint provided by J B S <a href="/entry/haldane_j_b_s">Haldane</a> in "The Last Judgment" (in <i>Possible Worlds</i>, coll <b>1927</b>). Other than millennarian fantasies, which claim that the future of destiny is imminent, very few novels link the two images of the future defined by Polak within a coherent historical narrative; <i>Last and First Men</i> is by far the most outstanding example, although Camille <a href="/entry/flammarion_camille">Flammarion</a>'s <i>Omega</i> (trans <b>1894</b>) had earlier brought the two into rather awkward juxtaposition.</p> <p>The early sf <a href="/entry/pulp">Pulp</a> magazines featured several far-future visions of the end of the world, but had little to compare with the imagery of the UK <a href="/entry/scientific_romance">Scientific Romances</a>, though there were occasional exceptions. Echoing Stapledon's vision if not his scale, Frank Belknap <a href="/entry/long_frank_belknap">Long</a> produced several "Last Men" short stories showing evolved humans as slaves of once-lesser species; the vivid "Green Glory" (August 1934 <a href="/entry/asf">Astounding</a>) reflects issues of totalitarian conflict. One notable story that presents the extinction of mankind's remote descendants as one more stage in a continuing process of change is "Seeds of the Dusk" (June 1938 <a href="/entry/asf">Astounding</a>) by Raymond Z <a href="/entry/gallun_raymond_z">Gallun</a>, in which a much-changed Earth is "invaded" and "conquered" by spores from another world. Gallun's "When Earth is Old" (August 1951 <a href="/entry/super_science_stories">Super Science Stories</a>) has time travellers (see <a href="/entry/time_travel">Time Travel</a>) negotiating with sentient plants to assure the rebirth of the species. The quest for some such rebirth is a common motif in far-future stories, and time travellers from the present frequently contrive to turn the evolutionary tide that is sweeping humanity towards extinction, as in such stories as John W <a href="/entry/campbell_john_w_jr">Campbell</a> Jr's "Twilight" (November 1934 <a href="/entry/asf">Astounding</a>) as by Don A Stuart. The idea of reigniting a senescent Sun in order to give Earth and mankind a new lease of life is poignantly deployed in Clark Ashton <a href="/entry/smith_clark_ashton">Smith</a>'s "Phoenix" (in <i>Time to Come</i>, anth <b>1954</b>, ed August <a href="/entry/derleth_august">Derleth</a>) and extravagantly developed in Gene <a href="/entry/wolfe_gene">Wolfe</a>'s <i>The Book of the New Sun</i> (<b>1980-1983</b> 4vols). Such notions arise from false analogies drawn between the life of an individual and that of a species, alleging that species may "age" and become "senescent". The popularity of such ideas in sf is not surprising, given the influence of similar analogies between individuals and cultures in the work of philosophers of history like Oswald Spengler. Spengler's ideas were a strong influence on James <a href="/entry/blish_james">Blish</a>, whose most memorable accounts of the far future are "Watershed" (May 1955 <a href="/entry/if">If</a>) and <i>Midsummer Century</i> (April 1972 <a href="/entry/fsf">F&SF</a>; rev <b>1972</b>). Images of an aged world that has returned to its "second childhood" are sometimes as affectionate as rose-tinted images of human retirement; the classic example is John <a href="/entry/crowley_john">Crowley</a>'s <i>Engine Summer</i> (<b>1979</b>).</p> <p>Clark Ashton Smith set the most lushly exotic of all his series in Zothique, the "last continent" – a bizarre and <a href="/entry/decadence">Decadent</a> world in which <a href="/entry/magic">Magic</a> flourishes. The stories, all written in the 1930s, were eventually collected in <i>Zothique</i> (coll <b>1970</b>). Zothique offered Smith more imaginative freedom than his distant-past scenario Hyperborea precisely because it was irredeemably decadent. A similar but less fervent series of fantasies is Jack <a href="/entry/vance_jack">Vance</a>'s <i>The Dying Earth</i> (coll <b>1950</b>); later sequels include <i>The Eyes of the Overworld</i> (fixup <b>1966</b>), which contains a stronger strain of picaresque comedy; Vance's setting if not his comedy was a strong and acknowledged influence on Gene <a href="/entry/wolfe_gene">Wolfe</a>'s already-cited <i>The Book of the New Sun</i>. A <a href="/entry/merritt_a">Merritt</a> never used the far future as a setting, but his lavish descriptions of exotic landscapes influenced a number of far-future fantasies; Henry <a href="/entry/kuttner_henry">Kuttner</a> and C L <a href="/entry/moore_c_l">Moore</a>, who wrote a series of Merritt-influenced novels in the 1940s, offered a Merrittesque far future in <i>Earth's Last Citadel</i> (April-July 1943 <a href="/entry/argosy_the">Argosy</a>; <b>1964</b>).</p> <p>The classic pulp sf story of the far future is Arthur C <a href="/entry/clarke_arthur_c">Clarke</a>'s Stapledon-influenced <i>Against the Fall of Night</i> (November 1948 <a href="/entry/startling_stories">Startling</a>; <b>1953</b>; rev vt <i>The City and the Stars</i> <b>1956</b>). Its imagery is stereotyped – a bleak, derelict Earth with <a href="/entry/cities">Cities</a> whose handsome, incurious inhabitants are parasitic upon their <a href="/entry/machines">Machines</a> – but its perspectives widen dramatically to take in the whole cosmos, where mankind may yet seek a further and more glorious destiny. This was to become a central myth of sf, and many images of <a href="/entry/galactic_empires">Galactic Empire</a> include nostalgic portraits of stagnant backwater Earth. These are not, of course, images of the future of destiny but rather attempts to perpetuate and magnify the historical image – as is obvious in the many epics which construct galactic history by analogy with Earthly history.</p> <p>Images of far-future Earth became more varied in the sf of the 1950s; notable examples include a number of highly stylized and semi-allegorical vignettes by Fritz <a href="/entry/leiber_fritz">Leiber</a>, including "When the Last Gods Die" (December 1951 <a href="/entry/fsf">F&SF</a>) and "The Big Trek" (October 1957 <a href="/entry/fsf">F&SF</a>), as well as many fine stories by Brian W <a href="/entry/aldiss_brian_w">Aldiss</a>, including the later items in <i>The Canopy of Time</i> (coll <b>1959</b>; rev vt <i>Galaxies Like Grains of Sand</i> <b>1960</b>), "Old Hundredth" (November 1960 <a href="/entry/new_worlds">New Worlds</a>), the stories making up <i>The Long Afternoon of Earth</i> (stories February-December 1961 <a href="/entry/fsf">F&SF</a>; fixup <b>1962</b>; exp vt <i>Hothouse</i> <b>1962</b>), "A Kind of Artistry" (October 1962 <a href="/entry/fsf">F&SF</a>) and "The Worm that Flies" (in <i>The Farthest Reaches</i>, anth <b>1968</b>, ed Joseph <a href="/entry/elder_joseph">Elder</a>). As with all the stories in this category, these tend towards <a href="/entry/fantasy">Fantasy</a>, and some controversy was stirred up by a particularly memorable image in <i>The Long Afternoon of Earth</i>, in which gigantic cobwebs stretch between the Earth and the Moon, whose faces are now perpetually turned to one another. Other innovative uses of far-future settings can be seen in Cordwainer <a href="/entry/smith_cordwainer">Smith</a>'s mythically resonant <b>Instrumentality of Mankind</b> sequence, John <a href="/entry/brunner_john">Brunner</a>'s elegiac adventure story <i>The 100th Millennium</i> (<b>1959</b>; rev vt <i>Catch a Falling Star</i> <b>1968</b>), Samuel R <a href="/entry/delany_samuel_r">Delany</a>'s exotic romance <i>The Jewels of Aptor</i> (<b>1962</b>), Jack Vance's elegant political allegory <i>The Last Castle</i> (April 1966 <a href="/entry/galaxy">Galaxy</a>; <b>1967</b> chap dos), Michael <a href="/entry/moorcock_michael">Moorcock</a>'s <i>angst</i>-ridden <i>The Twilight Man</i> (<b>1966</b>; vt <i>The Shores of Death</i> <b>1970</b>) and Crawford <a href="/entry/kilian_crawford">Kilian</a>'s exotic romance of maturation <i>Eyas</i> (<b>1982</b>).</p> <p>Michael Moorcock's fondness for far-future settings encouraged him to break new ground in his <b>Dancers at the End of Time</b> trilogy (<b>1972-1976</b>) and various other works associated with it. In this series, whose tone ranges from extravagant <a href="/entry/satire">Satire</a> to perverse sentimentality, the ultimate future is inhabited by humans with godlike powers who must perpetually seek diversion from the tedium and <a href="/entry/decadence">Decadence</a> of their limitless existence. Other writers who have made frequent and significant use of far-future imagery in the later twentieth century include Robert <a href="/entry/silverberg_robert">Silverberg</a>, in such works as the surreal <i>Son of Man</i> (<b>1971</b>) and "This is the Road" (in <i>No Mind of Man</i>, anth <b>1973</b>, ed Robert <a href="/entry/silverberg_robert">Silverberg</a>), Doris <a href="/entry/piserchia_doris">Piserchia</a>, in such works as <i>A Billion Days of Earth</i> (<b>1976</b>) and <i>Earth in Twilight</i> (<b>1981</b>), and Michael G <a href="/entry/coney_michael_g">Coney</a> in <i>The Celestial Steam Locomotive</i> (<b>1983</b>), <i>Gods of the Greataway</i> (<b>1984</b>) and other associated works.</p> <p><a href="/entry/space_opera">Space Opera</a>, on those occasions when the constraints of relativity are observed, can convey its protagonists across significant <a href="/entry/time_abyss">Time Abysses</a> into remote futures when the cosmos may have significantly changed: Poul <a href="/entry/anderson_poul">Anderson</a> takes his <a href="/entry/starship">Starship</a> to the end of the universe and beyond in <i>Tau Zero</i> (June-August 1967 <a href="/entry/galaxy">Galaxy</a> as "To Outlive Eternity"; exp <b>1970</b>), and vast time-spans are similarly skipped over in Alastair <a href="/entry/reynolds_alastair">Reynolds</a>'s approach to New Space Opera – in particular his <b>Inhibitors</b> sequence opening with <i>Revelation Space</i> (<b>2000</b>), and the standalone <i>House of Suns</i> (<b>2008</b>). Other authors, like Greg <a href="/entry/bear_greg">Bear</a> in <i>City at the End of Time</i> (<b>2008</b>) look farther ahead to the <a href="/entry/end_of_time">End of Time</a> itself (see also <a href="/entry/omega_point">Omega Point</a>).</p> <p>For many years there were no <a href="/entry/anthologies">Anthologies</a> dealing specifically with this theme: indeed Harry <a href="/entry/harrison_harry">Harrison</a>'s attempt to compile a companion volume to his near-future anthology <i>The Year 2000</i> (anth <b>1970</b>), to be entitled «The Year 2,000,000», failed to attract sufficient suitable submissions. Later, however, came such relevant anthologies as <i>Far Futures</i> (anth <b>1997</b>) edited by Gregory <a href="/entry/benford_gregory">Benford</a> and <i>One Million AD</i> (anth <b>2006</b>) edited by Gardner <a href="/entry/dozois_gardner">Dozois</a>. Many new stories of Jack Vance's <a href="/entry/dying_earth">Dying Earth</a> (which see) appear in <i>Songs of the Dying Earth</i> (anth <b>2009</b>) edited by Dozois and George R R <a href="/entry/martin_george_r_r">Martin</a>. [BS/DRL]</p> <p><b>see also:</b> <a href="/entry/devolution">Devolution</a>; <a href="/entry/mythology">Mythology</a>.</p> <p><b>further reading</b></p> <ul class="x"> <li>Fred Polak. <em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=De+toekomst+is+verleden+tijd&field-author=Fred+Polak" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">De toekomst is verleden tijd</a></em> ["The Future Is Past Time"] (Amsterdam, Netherlands: De Haan, <b>1955</b>) [published in two volumes: hb/] <ul class="x"> <li>Fred Polak. <em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=The+Image+of+the+Future&field-author=Fred+Polak" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">The Image of the Future</a></em> (Leydon, Netherlands: A W Sythoff/New York: Oceana Publications, <b>1961</b>) [nonfiction: published in two volumes: trans by Elise Boulding of the above: hb/] <ul class="x"> <li>Fred Polak. <em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=The+Image+of+the+Future&field-author=Fred+Polak" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">The Image of the Future</a></em> (Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier, <b>1973</b>) [nonfiction: cut version of the above trans: hb/]</li> </ul></li> </ul></li> </ul> <p><b>previous versions of this entry</b></p> <ul><li><a href='https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/far_future' target='_blank'>Internet Archive</a></li></ul><br /><br /></article></div> <div class="sideBarsWrapper"> <div class="sideBarsColsWrapper clearfix"> <div class="column sideBar12 clearfix"> <div class="columnForm"><aside id="blogFeed" class="widget"> <div class="content STeditorial clearfix"> <h2>Recently visited entries<span style="background:url(/images/thingSFE2.png) !important"></span></h2><ul style='width: 50%; 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