Abstract
Where in the universe are you? Cosmologies the world over have grappled with the question of where this universe we inhabit has come from, and the cosmology that lies at the heart of western culture is no exception.If this one cosmology was the only possibility, knowing where you are at, would be easy, and knowing where you were going, a surety. But rather than maintain a calm sea of cosmological agreement, science fiction looks to alternative cosmological models, and while keeping one eye on the past, extrapolates possibilities and futures in a universe of ‘cold equations.’ Where you are at is not a single point drawn upon a linear, historical line, but rather, it is the effect of where you have come from and where you are going. Through the lens of selected fiction by Philip K. Dick, Robert Heinlein, Frank Herbert and H.P. Lovecraft, this paper will examine the borderland between the remote past and the possible future, the still point upon which humankind stands.