Wednesday 2 December 2015

Time Wars

Poul Anderson, "Flight to Forever" IN Anderson, Past Times (New York, 1984), pp. 207-288.

There are perhaps two "Time Wars" in "Flight to Forever."

(i) In the twenty third century, the Martian colonies revolted against the Terrestrial Directorate. A defeated Directorate army leaped to the twenty fourth century and attempted reconquest but was smashed.

(ii) In 50,000 AD, when the Anvardi attack Sol, the Imperial ship Vengeance travels three days back in time, calculates the exact position of the Anvardian flagship seventy two hours hence, travels to that position and rematerializes beside the flagship simultaneously bombarding it with vortex cannon, blasters, gravity snatchers, atomic shells and torpedoes etc while the rest of the Imperial fleet, only one tenth the size of its enemy, attacks the Anvardi fleet which then recoils and breaks up when assaulted from within and without.

These are low key affairs when compared with the time wars between:

Wardens and Rangers in The Corridors of Time;
Havig's group and the Eyrie in There Will Be Time;
the Patrol and the Exaltationists in the Time Patrol series.

I have seen an anthology called Time Wars including Anderson's Time Patrol story, "Delenda Est," (Patrol versus Neldorians) and have read references to a series called Time Wars created but not written by Poul Anderson. I would be grateful for any information on the latter.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

It's obvious why the time wars seen in "Flight to Forever" seems low key compared to the other conflicts you listed: "Flight" is an EARLY work by Poul Anderson, when he was only just beginning to work out the possibilities of conflict with time travel.

Sean