Tag Archives: set in 2027

Set in 2027 #3: The Listeners, by James Gunn

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Second paragraph of third chapter (“William Mitchell – 2028”, original published as “The Message” in Galaxy Magazine, in the same issue as the last part of Robert Silverberg’s A Time of Changes):

Every seat in the domed stadium was filled, and the aisles were clogged with people sitting and standing. The people were of all kinds: old, middle-aged, young, children, infants; men and women; rich and poor; black, brown, red, yellow, and pink; clothed for work, street, or party. They all waited for the message to begin.

This is James Gunn’s top book on LibraryThing, pipped by Transcendental on Goodreads. (I suppose I have to specify that this is the science fiction writer James E. Gunn, who lived from 1923 to 2020, not the film maker James Francis Gunn, who was born in 1966.) It’s a fix-up of six stories, five previously published elsewhere, about the reception of a message from aliens in the year 2027 and the consequences for human society. Only the second chapter is actually set in 2027, about the moment when the message actually arrives at the Project in Arecibo while a reporter is visiting. The stories in general are about the impact of the message on the director’s marriage, the first black U.S. President, and the leader of a cult; and then there is a big flash forward to decades later where we find out what has become of the planet Earth in the meantime.

I found it a rather gloomy book. A major character attempts suicide at the end of the first chapter, and the Project itself is depressingly subject to external cultural and political currents in the USA of the 2020s. The world of The Listeners is proud to have finally elected a black president, but women’s roles don’t seem to have changed much from the 1950s. (The stories were published between 1968 and 1972.) The other major difference with our timeline, of course, is that the Arecibo telescope is still in use in the 21st and 22nd century; this side of the timewarp, alas, it physically collapsed in 2020 and will not be rebuilt.

You can get The Listenbers here.

Project Hail Mary, and (set in 2027 #1) The Long Morrow

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Doing my best to track the media I have been consuming other than books here.

F and I went to the cinema two weeks ago to watch Project Hail Mary. I didn’t think the book was all that great – I was Deputy Hugo Administrator that year, and I see from my records that I put it fifth on the ballot (and Hugo voters actually ranked it sixth out of six, though it had the third highest number of first preferences). It was far ahead on Goodreads/LibraryThing ownership, while the actual winner was third on average ratings and fourth on number of owners. But there was enough squee about the film that it seemed worth a Whyte father-and-son expedition to the cinema.

Yes, folks, it’s a really fun film. Andy Weir has managed to grab a few headlines by asserting that the story is not political and he doesn’t understand why anyone would want it to be. Of course both film and novel are political, even if he wants to pretend otherwise, but a lot of the things that annoyed me about the novel have been taken out of the film.

There are lots of silly things – the protagonist’s amnesia is just sufficient to carry the plot, the (complicated) science mostly happens in parentheses, millions (perhaps billions) die on Earth while the mission is happening out at Tau Ceti and we are not really invited to care. But the energy of the single chap carrying the hopes of the world on his mission is compulsive, rather like Neil Armstrong (and who was p[laying him in First Man? Oh yeah). In particular, the effects are brilliant, with Rocky the alien stealing your heart. I’m sure it will be a Hugo finalist next year (and I don’t plan to be involved).

The other thing I’ve watched since my last update is “The Long Morrow”, an episode of The Twilight Zone from 1964. This is the first step in my project of reading and watching sf set next year, ie in 2027. There’s quite a lot of it (2026 was surprisingly sparse).

“The Long Morrow” has a simple punchline. An astronaut sent on a 40-year mission in 1987 falls in love just before his launch. He decides to forego the usual suspended animation, so that he can age at the same rate as his girlfriend back home. BUT she doesn’t know that this is his plan, and puts herself in suspended animation in anticipation of his return, so at the end of his mission, in the far distant future of 2027, she is still 26 and he is 70. As science fiction, it’s very well done, a great example of Philip K. Dick’s line about wanting to move from “What if…?” to “My God! What if…”.

The last eight minutes (of 25) are set in 2027, and feature the confrontation between girlfriend and astronaut. Mariette Harley really glows as the girl. The script does its best to focus on Robert Lansing as the astronaut, but Harley steals it.

Unfortunately all we see of 2027 is a corridor in the space control centre, so we can’t deduce much about Rod Serling’s predictions for what next year will look like. This story apparently inspired the opening episode of Season 7 of The Gilmore Girls, which has the same title, but I have little information about that.

Much more 2027 to come.