Friday 18 February 2022

The Time Traveler And Jack Havig

We have observed that Jack Havig time travels like Wells's Time Traveler but without a time machine. That is no surprise because they are indirectly connected. Caleb Wallis, mutant time traveler, shared the time travel idea with:

"'...a young Englishman in the '90's, starting out as an author, a gifted fellow even if he was kind of a socialist.'"
-There Will Be Time, VII, p. 73.

Jack Havig, also a mutant time traveler, confided in Robert Anderson who shared the idea of this kind of time travel with Poul Anderson. Thus, The Time Machine and There Will Be Time (fictitiously) share a common source. (We have to be careful here. When I suggested to someone that a sequel to The Time Machine could begin with the premise that Wells had written a true account mistaken for fiction, the other guy soon started to ask in extreme puzzlement where I thought that The Time Machine was true (!) Be careful what you say to the unintelligent.)

Our recognition of the "young Englishman" parallels our recognition of the Victorian private investigator who appears in "Time Patrol." Poul Anderson acknowledges his own literary context.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Very deft and clever, how Anderson connected THERE WILL BE TIME with both Wells' TIME MACHINE and A. Conan Doyle's stories about the Great Detective.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

THERE WILL BE TIME with THE TIME MACHINE. TIME PATROL with Holmes.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Exactly what I had in mind.

Ad astra! Sean