But for other speculative fiction, particularly involving time travel to the future or teleportation to “other worlds”, the concrete item can become ludicrous. They aren’t likely to have six shooters, or speak anything remotely like English, even a few hundred years off. You can pick your example in this category, I’ve recently been reading A.E. Van Vogt’s “The Weapon Shops of Isher”, and balking. Yet it has to be relatable… what to do in that case? (Just don’t write it; or ask a lot more of your reader?) In some cases, where our present doesn’t mix with the built-world, I can accept things as analog. I don’t need to know that Men in Tolkien’s Middle Earth didn’t speak actual 20th century English; ditto for Frank Herbert’s Dune.
Anyway, I continue to look forward to picking up Elegy Beach.