Anyone want to bet that people will be living in the same general circumstances then? That the same general social and cultural and material standards will apply?
I have a hunch that the history books are a poor way of planning a life today—and that science-fiction comes a lot closer.
There's another thing about science-fiction yarns that is quite conspicuous; it's so difficult to pick out the villains. It might have made quite a change in history if the ballads and tales of the old days had been a little less sure of who the villains were. Read the standard boy's literature of forty years ago; tales of Crusaders who were always right, and Saracens who were always wrong. (The same Saracens who taught the Christians to respect the philosophy of the Greeks, and introduced them to the basic ideas of straight, self-disciplined thinking!)
Life's much simpler in a thatched cottage than in a dome on the airless Moon, easier to understand when the Villains are all pure black-hearted villains, and the Heroes are all pure White Souled Heroes. Just look how simple history is compared with science-fiction! It's simple—but is it good?
These early science-fiction tales explored the Universe; they were probings, speculations, as to where we could go. What we could do.
They had a sweep and reach and exuberance that belonged.
They were fun, too....
John W. Campbell, Jr.
Mountainside,N.J.
April, 1953