Alien Induction

The Real World by Steven Utley

May 15th, 2026 by Rusty

"The Real World" is a 2000 science fiction short story by Steven Utley. It is about a scientist who has the distinguished honor of being the first person to travel back in time using a recently discovered time funnel. The question is: did he come back to the same world he left?

Non-Spoiler Summary In A Nutshell: The story is about Ivan, a pedologist who is going to visit his brother in sunny California. He arrives to find his niece all grown up and learns that his brother, a big shot Hollywood screen writer, is going to take him to a lavish birthday party for some famous actor. Along the way we discover that actors are being replaced by computer generated movie stars and that Ivan's claim to fame, being the first person through an anomalous time tunnel, isn't even recognized as the major scientific achievement it was. Amidst all this Ivan starts to wonder about this world he supposedly returned to.

Nothing moved along the whole beach, nothing except the curling waves and the tangles of seaweed they had cast up. The beach curved away to left and right. It must curve away forever, Ivan thought. Hundreds, thousands of miles of perfectly unspoiled beach. He knelt on the dark wet sand and collected a sample of seawater. As he sealed the vial, he saw something emerge from the foam about two meters to his right. It was an arthropod about as big as his hand, flattened and segmented and carried along on jointed legs. The next wave licked after it, embraced it, appeared momentarily do draw it back toward the sea. The wave retreated, and the creature hesitated. Come on, Ivan thought, come on. Come on. He entertained no illusions that he had arrived on the spot just in time to greet the first Earth creature ever to come ashore. Surely, a thousand animals, a million, had already done so, and plants before them, and microorganisms before plants. Nevertheless, he had to admire the timing of this demonstration. He crouched, hands on knees, and waited. Foam rushed over the creature again. Come on, Ivan commanded it, make up your dim little mind. It's strange out here on land, not altogether hospitable, but you'll get used to it, or your children will, or your great-grandchildren a million times removed. Eventually, most of the species, most of the biomass, will be out here.

My Two Cents:

The good: I enjoyed this story because it was very well written. The dialog between Ivan and his niece, brother and pompous Hollywood stars was amazing - really giving you insight into how their thought processes work. My favorite part came when he described his first visit to the Paleozoic Earth - it was beautiful, quite like I imagine it really would be.
The bad: This is not an action packed story. If you prefer more shooting and wild chases in your stories then you may not like this one as much. Also, it is a little bit long and doesn't really tie things up all that nicely at the end.

Fact Sheet:

• Length: 20 pages

• "The Real World" is part of a series of stories, called the Silurian Tales, which detail the adventures of time-jumping scientists. Here are the other stories in this series:

"There and Then" (1993)
"The Real World" (2000)
"Chain of Life" (2000)
"The Despoblado" (2000)
"Cloud by van Gogh" (2000)
"Five Miles from Pavement" (2001)
"Half a Loaf" (2001)
"The World Without" (2001)
"Walking in Circles" (2002)
"Foodstuff" (2002)
"Treading the Maze" (2002)
"Exile" (2003)
"Invisible Kingdoms" (2004)
"Babel" (2004)
"A Paleozoic Palimpsest" (2004)
"The Wave-Function Collapse" (2005)
"Promised Land" (2005)
"Silv'ry Moon" (2005)
"Diluvium" (2006)

Where you can find "The Real World":

This story first appeared in Sci Fiction on August 30, 2000.
"The Real World" was included in Gardner Dozois's anthology The Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction.^†
You can still read a free online version of "The Real World" at the old Sci Fiction.