"The Return of William Proxmire" is a short story by

Larry Niven Laurence van Cott Niven (; born April 30, 1938) is an American science fiction writer. His best-known works are '' Ringworld'' (1970), which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards, and, with Jerry Pournelle, '' The Mote in God's E ...

first published in 1989 in the anthology ''What Might Have Been? Volume 1: Alternate Empires'', edited by

Gregory Benford Gregory Benford (born January 30, 1941) is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is professor emeritus at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine. He is a contributing editor of ''Reas ...

. The short story was reprinted in Niven's collection ''

N-Space n-Space Inc. was an American video game developer founded in 1994 by Erick S. Dyke, Dan O'Leary, and Sean Purcell. It developed games on nearly a dozen different platforms, but was mostly focused on Nintendo consoles and handhelds in particul ...

'', as well as the

Robert A. Heinlein Robert Anson Heinlein (; July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988) was an American science fiction author, aeronautical engineer, and naval officer. Sometimes called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was among the first to emphasize scientific accu ...

retrospective '' Requiem''.

Plot summary

The point-of-view character, a physicist with a time-travel theory, is approached by retired Senator

William Proxmire Edward William Proxmire (November 11, 1915 – December 15, 2005) was an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a United States Senator from Wisconsin from 1957 to 1989. He holds the record for being the longest-serv ...

. Proxmire has come up with a scheme to abolish such money-wasters (as Proxmire views them) as space travel. His plan is simple; many of those who worked for or advocated space travel cited the science fiction of

as their inspiration. However, the iconic writer only began his career after being discharged from the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

due to

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...

. If a time traveler were to cure Heinlein, he would presumably remain in the military and this impact on history would be negated. Sure enough, the scheme is carried out. However, Proxmire finds out that he has not succeeded as well as he would have liked. Although Heinlein's absence from the literary world of the new timeline ''did'' neutralize the

science fiction magazine A science fiction magazine is a publication that offers primarily science fiction, either in a hard-copy periodical format or on the Internet. Science fiction magazines traditionally featured speculative fiction in short story, novelette, nove ...

s of the 1950s, other authors took Heinlein's place just a decade later – in mainstream literary magazines such as ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

''. Science fiction thus gained an air of respectability, and inspired people to even greater achievements. Proxmire's political career ended when this culture of science fiction fans boycotted Wisconsin cheese in response to his Golden Fleece Awards. The new timeline is far more technologically advanced; solar power satellites can be seen in the night sky, a

lunar colony Colonization of the Moon or Lunar settlement is a process, or concept employed by some proposals, for claiming robotic or human exploitation and settlement on the Moon. Laying claim to the Moon has been declared illegal through international ...

exists, and a

mission to Mars ''Mission to Mars'' is a 2000 American science fiction adventure film directed by Brian De Palma, written by Jim Thomas, John Thomas, and Graham Yost, and suggested by Disney's theme park attraction of the same name. The film depicts the first ...

is underway. The healthy Heinlein turned out to be as skilled an

officer An officer is a person who has a position of authority in a hierarchical organization. The term derives from Old French ''oficier'' "officer, official" (early 14c., Modern French ''officier''), from Medieval Latin ''officiarius'' "an officer," f ...

as he would have been an author, and is now an admiral with great influence over an equally healthy space program – he denies the Russians spacecraft, but has placed a number of cosmonauts on the Mars mission as payment for

fusion bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...

s to be used in the ship's ORION drive.

Reception

"Return" was a finalist for the 1990

Hugo Award for Best Short Story The Hugo Award for Best Short Story is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The short story award is available for works of fiction o ...

.Hugo Nominees 1990
''Locus''. In 2010, however, ''

Strange Horizons ''Strange Horizons'' is an online speculative fiction magazine. It also features speculative poetry and nonfiction in every issue, including reviews, essays, interviews, and roundtables. History and profile It was launched in September 2000, and ...

'' described it as "execrably toothless satire", calling it "desperately unfunny, unsophisticated, self-congratulatory stuff" that "reeks (...) of crassness",The Best of Larry Niven, edited by Jonathan Strahan
reviewed by Dan Hartland; published December 13, 2010; retrieved January 17, 2017 while science fiction scholar Brooks Landon considered that what was most remarkable about the story was "its faith that Robert Heinlein was such an exceptional individual that his life would have changed the future no matter what his occupation."Science Fiction After 1900: From the Steam Man to the Stars
by Brooks Landon, published May 1, 2014, by

Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law ...

, via

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...

References

1989 short stories Alternate history short stories Robert A. Heinlein Short stories by Larry Niven Short fiction about time travel {{1980s-sf-story-stub