Subject: Review: THE YEAR 2000 edited by Harry Harrison

From: "Evelyn C Leeper" <[email-masked]>
Date: 01 Mar 2000 16:06:37 -0500

THE YEAR 2000 edited by Harry Harrison
           Berkley, ISBN 0-425-02117-3, 1970, 254pp, US$0.95
                   A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		    Copyright 2000 Evelyn C. Leeper

     In 1970, Harry Harrison had thirteen authors write stories set thirty
years in the future, in the year 2000.  Well, having arrived there, I
thought this might be a good time to see how close or far these stories
are from reality.

     The beginning of the first story, Fritz Leiber's "America the
Beautiful," gives you a feel for what these stories are like: "I am
returning to England.  I am shorthanding this, July 5, 2000, aboard the
Dallas-London rocket as it arches silently out of the diffused violet
daylight of the stratosphere into the eternally star-spangled purple night
of the ionosphere."  The story itself deals with both the rising tensions
between America and "the Communist League," and the generally
self-satisfied feeling that Americans have with themselves.  If the former
has turned out to be false, there is still some truth in the latter.

     The second story ("Prometheus Rebound" by Daniel F. Galouye) reads
like something out of the 1930s, making me wonder what *he* was thinking
the year 2000 would be like.

     Before there was Mike Resnick, there was Chad Oliver, and before
there was "Kirinyaga" there was "Far from This Earth," Oliver's story of
progress, if progress it be, in Kenya.  It's surprising, in fact, that
this was not one of the inspirations for Resnick's series, but it wasn't.

     Naomi Mitchison's "After the Accident" is a rather straightforward
genetic engineering story.  "Utopian" by Mack Reynolds reads like one
of those stilted Utopian stories from decades ago, right down to people
saying things like "If we were still using the somewhat inefficient
calendar of your period, this would be approximately the year 2000."

     Like Reynolds's story, "Sea Change" by A. Bertram Chandler deals with
someone who has "time-traveled" (via deep sleep) from 1970 to 2000.
Similarly, Chandler also has a theme of "the old best are sometimes the
best," though in a different sense than Reynolds.

     Robert Silverberg is one of the two authors who thought the race
issue would be critical over the next thirty years.  Though his racially
separated society of "Black Is Beautiful" did not arise, his story does
raise issues that are relevant today, not least of which is when does
autonomy become just segregation under a different name.  The paperback
edition has an unfortunate typo at the beginning, with "1933" instead of
"1983."

     The other story of race relations is "American Dead" by Harry
Harrison, and it paints an even gloomier view of the conflict between
black and white.  What is of interest is that neither Silverberg nor
Harrison has any other racial influences in his story.  Missing are the
Asians and the Hispanics who certainly have an impact in the racial
politics of the United States in the year 2000.

     "The Lawgiver" by Keith Laumer is still very topical today with its
theme of "right-to-life" issues, though a bit heavy-handed, I thought.

     Though in real life J. J. Coupling was involved in communications
technology (under his real name, John R. Pierce, he was an executive
director in Bell Labs when he wrote his story), "To Be a Man" is more
about bioengineering.  However, it has some very "modern" ideas, in
particular more of the concepts that Greg Egan is using these days.  I was
particularly reminded of Egan's "Reasons to be Cheerful."

     One note: of the thirteen authors, only Aldiss, Coupling, Harrison,
Masson, and Silverberg are still alive to see how it really turned out.
The used bookstore where Mark or I bought this went out of business a few
years ago as well, after being in existence more than a hundred years.

%B      The Year 2000
%E      Harry Harrison
%T      "America the Beautiful"
%A      Fritz Leiber
%T      "Prometheus Rebound"
%A      Daniel F. Galouye
%T      "Far from This Earth"
%A      Chad Oliver
%T      "After the Accident"
%A      Naomi Mitchison
%T      "Utopian"
%A      Mack Reynolds
%T      "Orgy of the Living and the Dying"
%A      Brian W. Aldiss
%T      "Sea Change"
%A      A. Bertram Chandler
%T      "Black Is Beautiful"
%A      Robert Silverberg
%T      "Take It Or Leave It"
%A      David I. Masson
%T      "The Lawgiver"
%A      Keith Laumer
%T      "To Be a Man"
%A      J. J. Coupling
%T      "Judas Fish"
%A      Thomas N. Scortia
%T      "American Dead"
%A      Harry Harrison
%C      New York
%D      1970
%I      Berkley
%O      paperback, US$0.95
%G      ISBN 0-425-02117-3
%P      254pp

Evelyn C. Leeper    |  My other email address is [email-masked]
+1 732 332 6218     |  http://www.geocities.com/evelynleeper
Don't ever save anything for a special occasion.  Every day you're
alive is a special occasion.  --Ann Wells