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Theodore L. Thomas
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 Theodore L. Thomas published stories widely in the science fiction field between 1952 and the
late 1970s, and collaborated on two novels with Kate Wilhelm,
The Clone (1965) and The Year of the
Cloud (1970). He was always a competent craftsman. His best work was done for the most part for
Campbell's Astounding/Analog, but since he did not achieve recognition as a novelist, his shorter works are infrequently
reprinted today by anthologists. This long story is perhaps his best.
Meteorology is one of the scientific disciplines that is little treated in hard sf, perhaps because it
is interdisciplinary and does not yield exact predictions far in advance. Exceptions that come readily to
mind include George R. Stewart's non-genre novel,
Storm (told from the point of view of a storm); Ben
Bova's novel, The Weathermakers; and a number of the stories of Hilbert Schenck, including "Hurricane Claude"
and "The Morphology of the Kirkham Wreck." And Thomas' "The Weather Man." Even in this era of
world-building sf novels, the weather (like the social system) is often a minor factor, or ignored, just there.
Yet weather control has long been a dream of science, and of science fiction of the utopian strain.
"The Weather Man" (1962) uses the venerable genre technique of extrapolating a future
dominated entirely by any one facet of science and society (for good, as in H. G. Wells' "Wings Over the World" in
the film Things to Come, or ill, as in Pohl & Kornbluth's Ad agencies in
The Space Merchants) -- an approach critic Frederic Jameson has termed "world reduction." It is a special case of world-building, also subsumed under
Jameson's term.
The Weather Control Board suggests a parallel to Kipling's Aerial Board of Control, in "With the
Night Mail" and "As Easy as A.B.C." Thomas' big idea is that the weather on Earth could be controlled, and
the controllers would rule the world. Thomas' view of politics, in the Weather Council, is notably benign for
hard sf, and his woman scientist of the Weather Advisers a stronger and more rounded character than is
usually found in the sf of the period. Thomas' technique is to portray the everyday world of the future in such a
way that it reveals itself to the reader steadily through significant details that sometimes indicate revelations
of major change. This is a story of the human meaning of science and a wonder story of technology on the
largest scale. The progressive changes in point of view encourage the reader to identify with the godlike
narrative voice in the end, the spirit of hard sf.
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The Ascent of Wonder copyright © 1994 by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. | ||
Cramer: On Science & Science Fiction || Hartwell: Hard Science Fiction
David G. Hartwell || Kathryn Cramer || About Tor Books || Ordering Info
Interactive Intoduction to THE ASCENT OF WONDER copyright © 1995-1997 by Kathryn Cramer.