History Creator / MurrayLeinster

** In the future-history setting that includes the Colonial Survey stories and the Literature/MedShip stories, FTL travel is possible, but FTLRadio isn't; messages have to be physically carried between solar systems by space ships, and it is often months before a message can reach its destination. (The dramatic result is that the protagonists of the stories are often forced to come up with their own solutions, as there is no way to summon help in time.)

Murray Leinster (1896 - 1975) was a prolific author of science fiction whose works include several firsts.

"The Runaway Skyscraper" (1919), his first published SF story, is one of the first works in which a location or structure and all its inhabitants are transported to an earlier point in history. "Sidewise in Time" (1934) has a claim as the first science fiction story featuring alternate histories, and also the first AlternateHistory story specifically to ask that perennial favorite question, ''[[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar What if the South won?]]''. "Literature/FirstContact" (1945) has a claim to first UniversalTranslator and first use of "FirstContact" as the term for two alien races meeting. "A Logic Named Joe" (1946) predicts the use of home computers and depicts a public computer network very similar to the Internet.

Leinster won a HugoAward for his 1956 novelette "Exploration Team", and "First Contact" was awarded a Retro-Hugo[[note]](the Retro-Hugos honor works that might have won Hugos if there had been Hugos at the time)[[/note]] in 1996. The Sidewise Award for Alternate History, established in 1995, is named after "Sidewise in Time".

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* TechnologyMarchesOn: In "The Skit-Tree Planet", the exploration advance team carry a film camera to record things they'll want to look at again later, and a television camera for transmitting vision back to base. It's taken for granted that these two processes can't be combined in a single camera set-up.

"Sidewise in Time" (1934) has a claim as the first science fiction story featuring alternate histories, and also the first AlternateHistory story specifically to ask that perennial favorite question, ''[[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar What if the South won?]]''. "Literature/FirstContact" (1945) has a claim to first UniversalTranslator and first use of "FirstContact" as the term for two alien races meeting. "A Logic Named Joe" (1946) predicts the use of home computers and depicts a public computer network very similar to the Internet.

* ''Literature/FirstContact''

** In "First Contact", FTL travel is only possible in a perfect vacuum. At the time, many astrophysicists believed that interstellar space was completely particle-free, which later turned out not to be the case.

* FirstContact: ''Literature/FirstContact''

* NoWarpingZone: When ''Literature/FirstContact'' was published, many astronomers believed that outer space was a perfect vacuum. The human-piloted starship in that story could only travel faster-than-light in a ''total'' vacuum -- even the slightest wisp of atmosphere or nebula would be enough to prevent it.

* UniversalTranslator: ''First Contact''

"Sidewise in Time" (1934) has a claim as the first science fiction story featuring alternate histories, and also the first AlternateHistory story specifically to ask that perennial favorite question, ''[[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar What if the South won?]]''. "First Contact" (1945) has a claim to first UniversalTranslator and first use of "FirstContact" as the term for two alien races meeting. "A Logic Named Joe" (1946) predicts the use of home computers and depicts a public computer network very similar to the Internet.

* Literature/MedShip

* FirstContact: "First Contact"

* NoWarpingZone: When "First Contact" was published, many astronomers believed that outer space was a perfect vacuum. The human-piloted starship in that story could only travel faster-than-light in a ''total'' vacuum -- even the slightest wisp of atmosphere or nebula would be enough to prevent it.

* UniversalTranslator: "First Contact"

"Sidewise in Time" (1934) has a claim as the first science fiction story featuring alternate histories, and also the first AlternateHistory story specifically to ask that perennial favorite question, ''[[TheAmericanCivilWar What if the South won?]]''. "First Contact" (1945) has a claim to first UniversalTranslator and first use of "FirstContact" as the term for two alien races meeting. "A Logic Named Joe" (1946) predicts the use of home computers and depicts a public computer network very similar to the Internet.

* AlternateHistory: In "Sidewise in Time", a mysterious cataclysm causes several timelines to overlap, allowing glimpses of a variety of alternate histories, including one where the Vikings colonized North America, one where no Europeans colonized America, and of course one where TheAmericanCivilWar went to the other side.

** In the future-history setting that includes the Space Survey stories and the Literature/MedShip stories, FTL travel is possible, but FTLRadio isn't; messages have to be physically carried between solar systems by space ships, and it is often months before a message can reach its destination. (The dramatic result is that the protagonists of the stories are often forced to come up with their own solutions, as there is no way to summon help in time.)

* TractorBeam: In the future-history setting that includes the Space Survey stories and the Literature/MedShip stories, the space-age equivalent of air traffic control towers are equipped with force fields used to bring arriving spaceships in to controlled landings, and to loft departing spaceships out of the planet's gravity well without the limitations of rockets and having to carry rocket fuel.

* FasterThanLightTravel: In "First Contact", FTL travel is only possible in a perfect vacuum. At the time, many astrophysicists believed that interstellar space was completely particle-free, which later turned out not to be the case.

* ArtificialGravity: Spaceships in the Med Ship stories are equipped with "internal-gravity fields", which are never explained or indeed ever mentioned except when they go wrong.

* FasterThanLightTravel:
** In "First Contact", FTL travel is only possible in a perfect vacuum. At the time, many astrophysicists believed that interstellar space was completely particle-free, which later turned out not to be the case.
** In the Med Ship stories, FTL travel is achieved using the "overdrive", a form of warp drive which creates a pocket of SubspaceOrHyperspace around the ship that allows it to travel at several hundred times the speed of light.

* TheImmune: One of the reasons every Med Ship carries a ''tormal'' as a pet is that they have super-efficient immune systems that can deal with any kind of infection before the ''tormal'' even knows it's sick. And ''tormal'' biology is enough like human that the antibodies can then be cultivated to help human sufferers from the same disease.

* KidsVersusAdults: One of the Med Ship stories featured a war between generations (although the younger was of the age of maturity).

* NobleShoplifter: In "Plague on Kryder II", Calhoun of the Med Service raids a grocery store in an evacuated town for samples of the products he suspects of being vectors for the "plague"; as he departs, he leaves money for them on the checkout desk.
* NonHumanSidekick: Murgatroyd the ''tormal'' in the Med Ship stories.

* RepeatingSoTheAudienceCanHear: Played with in the Med Ship stories. Calhoun has developed a habit of thinking out loud by talking to his pet Murgatroyd as if Murgatroyd could understand him, and responding to any noises Murgatroyd makes as if they were pertinent questions. His side of the conversation seems as if he's RepeatingSoTheAudienceCanHear, but really what Murgatroyd's saying is usually along the lines of "Why are you wasting time making incomprehensible noises when you could be fixing lunch?"

* TractorBeam: In the Med Ship stories, the space-age equivalent of air traffic control towers are equipped with force fields used to bring arriving spaceships in to controlled landings, and to loft departing spaceships out of the planet's gravity well.

* TheWatson: Played with in the Med Ship stories. Calhoun has developed a habit of thinking out loud by talking to his pet Murgatroyd as if Murgatroyd could understand him, and responding to any noises Murgatroyd makes as if they were pertinent questions. This is just as helpful to the reader as if Murgatroyd really were following the conversation.

* In the Med Ship stories, FTL travel is achieved using the "overdrive", a form of warp drive which creates a pocket of SubspaceOrHyperspace around the ship that allows it to travel at several hundred times the speed of light.

* KidsVersusAdults: One of the Med Ship stories featured a war between generations (although the younger was
of the age of maturity).