The Past Through Tomorrow

Cover of the original 1967 printing of The Past Through Tomorrow

The Past Through Tomorrow is a collection of Robert A. Heinlein's Future History stories.

Most of the stories are part of a larger storyline of a rapidly collapsing American sanity, followed by a theocratic dictatorship. A revolution overthrows the theocracy and establishes a free society which, nonetheless, does not save the pseudo-immortal Lazarus Long and his Howard Families from fleeing Earth for their lives. Most editions of the collection include a timeline showing the chronology of the stories (including stories never written, such as "The Stone Pillow", which was to occur during the period of the theocracy), time of birth and death of the significant characters, and commentary by Heinlein.

The specific short stories included vary with the edition, but typically include:

• "Life-Line", 1939; a month before "Misfit"
• "Misfit", 1939
• "The Roads Must Roll", 1940
• "Requiem", 1940
• "'If This Goes On—'", 1940
• "Coventry", 1940
• "Blowups Happen", 1940
• "Universe", 1941
• "Methuselah's Children", 1941; extended and published as a novel, 1958
• "Logic of Empire", 1941
• "'—We Also Walk Dogs'", 1941
• "Space Jockey", 1947
• "'It's Great to Be Back!'", 1947
• "The Green Hills of Earth", 1947
• "Ordeal in Space", 1948
• "The Long Watch", 1948
• "Gentlemen, Be Seated!", 1948
• "The Black Pits of Luna", 1948
• "Delilah and the Space Rigger", 1949
• "The Man Who Sold the Moon", 1950
• "The Menace From Earth", 1957
• "Searchlight", 1962

The 1986 Paperback edition is missing the story "Universe"

Reception

Algis Budrys hailed the collection as "some of the finest writing [science fiction] has ever known," describing it as "a magnificent compendium, coincidentally a rewarding and perhaps accurate cross-section of a writer's career."^[1]

References