Calling All Retro-Future Fans!

If you have stumbled upon this page…through chance or Blogger’s “NEXT BLOG” function…and like what you see…then you can continue to follow it at saralightwaller.com, my own website.

I hope you do…but this blog’s not for everyone.

Just people who like:

•  SCIENCE
• SCIENCE FICTION
• SPIRITUALITY
• QUANTUM PHYSICS
• TIME
• ALIENS
• TRANSHUMANISM
•            ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
• CONSPIRACIES
• SEMANTICS
• GENETICS

 …and, of course, the Pulp Visionaries from the early to mid-20C.

Who are these Pulp Visionaries anyway?

I’m talking about science fiction writers like Henry Kuttner, C. L. Moore, Murray Leinster, Fredric Brown, E.E. Doc Smith, L. Sprague De Camp and others who created a legacy of speculative science fiction that inspired generations. Writers who told stories that gave us glimpses into a remarkably accurate future. Many of these writers, and certainly their stories, have been long forgotten. I dredge them up and bring them forward…for your consideration.

As I said before…this blog isn’t for everyone. But if you wonder about repeating cycles of trends in culture and society or, you're curious how something written back in the 1930’s or 40’s can predict science or culture in 2016…then you’ve parked at the right place.

Check out the posts…see what you think, leave comments.

It’s all good.

Most of all…have fun! Because that’s what it’s really all about.

Sincerely,

Sara (Pulp Fiction historian)

P.S. I think I’ve ALMOST read through all of Henry Kuttner’s EXTENSIVE list of works. The ones I haven’t read, I just haven’t been able to get my hands on because some stories were only published ONCE in a pulp magazine back in the day and also because Kuttner and Moore used EIGHTEEN pseudonyms! (And yes! I DO know about the Kuttner / Barnes collaborations as Kelvin Kent and as Arthur K. Barnes.)

1.  Edward J. Bellin
2. Paul Edmonds
3. Noel Gardner
4. Will Garth
5. James Hall
6. Keith Hammond
7. Hudson Hastings
8. Peter Horn
9. Kelvin Kent
10. Robert O. Kenyon
11. H. Kuttner
12. Henry Kuttner, Jr.
13. C. H. Liddell
14. Scott Morgan
15. Lawrence O'Donnell
16. Lewis Padgett
17. Woodrow Wilson Smith
18. Charles Stoddard

P.P.S. And about Kuttner’s horror writing…it’s pretty darned scary so I haven’t read ALL of that yet either. But I will…eventually, I will.

Visionaries from the Future: Science, Spirituality, & Space Opera

by Sara Light-Waller

Photo by Nick Russill, 2005

Quantum Probabilities and the Future

“If we attempt to attribute an objective meaning to the quantum state of a single system, curious paradoxes appear: quantum effects mimic not only instantaneous action-at-a-distance, but also…influence…future actions on past events, even after these events have been irrevocably recorded.” ¹²³ – Asher Peres (1934-2005), quantum physicist.

By this logic, the future can impact the past, which means that just by writing this essay I’m affecting it. Seems strange, doesn’t? But this is not an unheard of theory today. We’re used to thinking of the past influencing the future, usually in a linear fashion. But with the increasingly widespread and popular appeal of quantum physics, and the growing interest in how consciousness affects reality, we begin to consider that Time is not linear and, in fact, may not exist at all. 

This has fascinating implications for the origins of our ideas. They might come from the future, or the past, or from the collective unconscious of humanity as described by Carl Jung (1875-1961). Of course, these are only some common theories, others include: past lives, parallel reality bleedthroughs, extraterrestrial intervention, extra-dimensional influences, and of course, inspiration by a supreme deity.

What does all this have to do with science fiction?

Science Fiction encourages thoughtful expansion. It speculates on what might be, and in a surprising number of cases, predicts with fair accuracy what’s to come. It’s been said that this is simple chance, merely an exercise in speculative potentials.  But if we take quantum mechanics into account, an author’s ideas could come from anywhere, or anywhen.