Tuesday 16 March 2021

The Time Patrol And The 00 Section

The Time Patrol is a secret organization in the periods before the invention of the first time machine and the 00 section is a secret organization period so is it possible that Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series and Ian Fleming's James Bond series are set in our timeline? In fact, each of these series is set in a different alternative timeline.

In the Time Patrol timeline, the Great Victorian Detective was a real person. In the James Bond timeline, an English celebrity called Sir Hugo Drax masterminded the British Moonraker rocket in 1954, Operation Thunderball was well-publicized in 1959 and there was a raid on Fort Knox some time in between. When fictional events go public, their timeline diverges from ours.

But both of these alternative timelines have something in common with ours:

in the Time Patrol timeline, Dr. Watson's narratives are true accounts;

in the James Bond timeline, a former friend and colleague of Commander Bond wrote some popular accounts of his adventures.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I don't know if you read any of them, but Sterling Lanier used the same device for writing his Brigadier Ffellowes stories. That is, a friend of the Brigadier jotted down the stories, changing names and locations to protect the persons in these tales. And I really like the Brigadier's stories--and there's even one featuring what has to be Sherlock Holmes!

Ad astra! Sean