Friday 18 January 2019

Time Travel And Families

How might time travel affect the successive generations of a single family? In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol, not at all - because Patrol members are prevented from learning anything about their personal futures.

In other time travel scenarios, things are different. When the title character of Audrey Niffeneger's The Time Traveler's Wife encounters a group of school children, a ten year old girl addresses him as "Daddy." When the girl's teacher, naming her "Alba," reminds her that her father is dead, the girl replies, "My daddy is a time traveler. He is not dead all the time." Thus, he learns the name of his as yet unborn daughter. Later, Alba's parents see her playing in their garden with - Alba.

In SM Stirling's The Sky-Blue Wolves, Orlaith meets her as yet unborn daughter who names herself "Darya," adding that she was named after her father's mother. Later, when Orlaith is alone with Prince Dzhambul, he mentions that his Russian mother was called Darya Nikolaevna Rodchenko...

"..." is meant to be suggestive...

Robert Heinlein's Temporal Bureau agent is both his own parents.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And don't forget how in Anderson's THERE WILL BE TIME, the older, adult Jack Havig sometimes traveled back in time to be the teacher and adviser of his younger self.

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
Not two different generations, though.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Oops! Then I have to suggest that Carl's involvement with multiple generations of his fourth century AD Gothic descendants in "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" is a better example.

Sean