WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG . . . ?
Introduction by Hank Davis
“IF THIS GOES WRONG . . .” is, of course, a switch on a phrase made famous by the even more famous and greatest of science fiction writers, Robert A. Heinlein (whom I often refer to, more formally, as God to save syllables). It was the title of his ground-breaking and now classic serial, If This Goes . . . ? serialized in the February and March, 1940 issues of Astounding Science-Fiction. It told of a future America ruled by a religious dictatorship, one of the earlier parts of his celebrated Future History series.
(If you somehow have never, or even hardly ever, encountered the celebrated Future History stories and novels by Heinlein, you should pause in your reading in of this introduction [after paying for this volume before leaving the bookstore, of course], and acquire The Man Who Sold the Moon, The Green Hills of Earth, Revolt in 2100 [which includes If This Goes On], Methuselah’s Children, and Orphans of the Sky [the first and fifth of these are currently available in a single volume—bargain!], currently available from Baen Books—plus Time Enough for Love and To Sail Beyond the Sunset, available from Berkley-Putnam when last seen. Now back to our regularly-scheduled editorial scribblings.)
A story of an America ruled by a religious dictatorship, giving hints of how that future came to pass, is a very undesirable future to contemplate, but Heinlein told of several other possible futures, undesirable, but in these two yarns, far less grim, even humorous circumstances. (Exit laughing?) Accompanying them are a nifty bunch of tales similarly exploring how thing can go wrong in sometimes grim, sometimes humorous stories, to assist you in living by proxy (sometimes, fortunately so) in these variant worlds.
I hope you enjoy the stories and regret that a recent string of bad health episodes (I am an old geezer, after all) has kept me from doing my usual garrulous type of intros.
Of course, some may prefer this briefer version. Nonetheless, I hope to do a longer version of this curtain-raiser and also longer story intros for the long-suffering Baen website (www.baen.com) at no extra cost. Stay tuned.
—Hank Davis
October 2016