Ladies and gentlemen, meet Keith Stevenson.
Keith is the man who gave Father Muerte his big break, debuting the Father's first story,
Father Muerte and the Theft, in
Aurealis 29, and providing me with my first sequel opportunity by gently nudging me until I sent him
Father Muerte & the Rain. Since then he's gone on to found a series of excellently-produced publishing ventures including the
Terra Incognita podcast;
Dimension 6 electronic magazine and
coeur de lion publishing, where he regularly produces brilliant tomes such as
X6 and
Anywhere But Earth. He's an all-round science fiction good guy, bon vivant, editor,
publisher and reviewer. You can find his
bloggy goodness right here.
And damn good writer in his own right: His debut novel
Horizon
is now
available as an ebook via Harper Collins. Which brings us to the very reason for this introduction: Today, Keith joins us to talk about charting future history as part of his
Horizon blog tour.
Give his entrance a nice, warm hand:
Horizon — Futureshock: Charting the History of Tomorrow
I’d like to thank Lee for giving over some space on his blog
for the Horizon Blog Tour.
Horizon is my
debut science fiction novel published by Harper Voyager Impulse. It’s an SF
thriller centred on a deep space exploration mission that goes very wrong, with
repercussions for the future of all life on Earth.
While the main focus of the story is the tense drama that
plays out between the crew in the cramped confines of the ship, a lot of the
grunt work in good science fiction goes into imagining the world of the future
and how future events shape characters and create a believable background.
The explorer ship Magellan
takes off on its mission between sixty and eighty years from now and the
‘in-flight’ time is fifty-five years (from our perspective). I’ve been
deliberately vague with the starting point of the timeline in case actual
historical events trip me up. But the world of 2075 (assuming we are all still
here) has been mapped out to some extent already.
Certainly, unless certain intransigent governments come to
their senses, we will be facing a climate disaster by then. The UN predicts we
will reach a population of 9.1 billion by 2050, with population peaking in 2070
at 9.4 billion, and the great majority of those extra billions will be born
into the poorest nations. Food security will be a major issue as the planet
struggles to feed those billions. In today’s world, already over a billion
people are going hungry.
Certainly in the short- and medium-term, the problems we see
emerging in the Middle East following the Arab Spring look set to continue. Ethnic
tensions are also leading to fracturing borders across Europe and elsewhere. It
is a tense time for the world right now and our geopolitical map is in flux. And
yet we are also witnessing amazing advances in all areas of science.
So here are the elements I have to play with: climate change
and environmental degradation, population growth and impact on infrastructure,
racial tensions and war, technological development and advances — I took all
these factors and pieced together a future history that maps out key events in
the fifty or so years leading up to the point when Magellan launches from Earth on its mission of exploration:
No. of
years before wake-up near Iota Pesei
|
Event
|
110
|
Nuclear
bombardment of selected targets in the Middle East and Asia by the United
States of America, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
|
109
|
War on
Terror officially declared ‘at an end’.
|
107
|
Compact
of Asian Peoples formed. Compact petitions for UN membership. United States
of America exercises its veto.
|
104
|
Pro-EU
factions win UK government in landslide election.
|
96
|
Significant
shrinkage of polar icecaps recorded for the fifteenth successive year. Effect
of rising sea levels felt worldwide.
|
94
|
Fuel-cell
boom sees formation of the Union of Northern States to protect sensitive
patents.
|
94
|
Kyoto III
finally ratified.
|
93
|
Compact
coalition cuts all trade ties with Australia.
|
90
|
EU
governments consolidated under a single body.
|
88
|
Hurricane
Ivan lays waste to the eastern seaboard of United States of America and a
large part of Central America.
|
87
|
United
States and Australian governments ratify creation of Pax Americana,
effectively merging the two countries into a consolidated trade, defence and
diplomatic entity. The wastelands from Florida to Pennsylvania are officially
excluded from the Pax.
|
85
|
The first
fully fledged Pax election sees an increase in pro-Green elected candidates
as a result of increasing environmental degradation and the legacy of
Hurricane Ivan.
|
84
|
Pax
Americana vetoes the Compact’s petition for UN membership.
|
79
|
To meet
its Kyoto III targets, Pax Americana switches exclusively to fuel-cell
technology for all public and an increasing percentage of private power
utilisation.
|
78
|
The Pax
oversees a massive retooling and retraining effort to gear its industries for
the new information economy. The need for a larger skilled workforce prompts
employment lotteries in the marginal eastern seaboard colonies. Thousands of
former USA citizens are resettled in the Pax.
|
74
|
The Union
of Northern States develops second-generation fuel-cell technology, halving
cost and mass and doubling output of the new cells.
|
72
|
The Pax
economy takes off on the crest of the fuel-cell revolution and the rebirth of
Silicon Valley.
|
66
|
First
bio-jack experiments yield amazing results in quadriplegic subjects.
|
64
|
The UNS
uses its voting block to force Pax Americana to approve the Compact’s
petition for UN member status. Compact granted member status of United
Nations.
|
63
|
Pax
American Space Administration (PASA) formed, with its headquarters at
Woomera, Australia. Near-Earth asteroid mining commences. Limited trial and
use of deepsleep for asteroid-belt mining sorties.
|
63
|
UN aid
program to the Compact finds health infrastructure is ‘primitive’ and in need
of immediate assistance. Pax, UNS and EU pledge six billion U-dollars to
build and equip fifteen hospitals and train over three hundred doctors.
|
61
|
EU
scientist Earnhard Godel develops the picopulse black-box propulsion system.
Wins Nobel Prize.
|
60
|
Environmental
studies conclude that the depletion of the ozone layer has halted.
|
60
|
PASA
announces the Explorer Ship program. International Space Station brought out
of mothballs to coordinate the search for a target star.
|
57
|
Testing
of Magellan prototype explorer ship complete. Crew selection includes Pax, EU
and UNS members; however, the UNS representative is injured in training. The
Pax government requests a replacement and UNS suggests a Compact citizen.
|
55
|
Magellan
launches from Earth orbit.
|
Of course, the fact that the crew comprises members of the Pax
Americana, the Compact and the European Union, means they are all heavily
invested in this future history and moulded by the climactic events that took
place in the decades before launch. But the world has not stood still while
they’ve slept on the way to Horizon, and there’s a whole swathe of future
history they need to catch up on when they wake, not all of which will be to
everyone’s liking.
Like what you've read? Well, there's plenty more. Make with the clicky and the calendar, and follow the Horizon blog tour:
5 November — Welcome to
Magellan:
Inside the Ship —
Darkmatter
6 November — Futureshock: Charting the History of Tomorrow —
Lee Battersby’s blog (hint: you're here)
10 November — Stormy Weather: Facing Down Climate Change —
BenPeek’s blog
