Monday 30 May 2022

Two Main Series

Technic History-Time Patrol parallels are always fruitful. In recent posts, we have had the symbolism of the third day in The Shield Of Time and The Day Of Their Return, also thank offerings in a van Rijn story, The Shield Of Time - and "Star of the Sea."

These have to be Poul Anderson's two main series. The Time Patrol is about the past but has its roots in the future. Time travel is invented in 19352 A.D., not in the nineteenth or twentieth centuries. The Technic History is about the future but has its roots in the past. The Terran Empire is based on the Roman Empire and historical cycles recur.

My two favourite sf themes, future history and time travel, are more than fulfilled. Although the Time Patrol is complete in only two long volumes whereas the Technic History fills seven, they are equal in significance.  

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I agree with what you said about the interest and significance of Anderson's Technic and Time Patrol series.

But the earliest, in the sense of being deliberately planned as such, of Anderson's future histories was his Pyschotechnic Institute series, comprising 20 stories and novels.* A series inspired by Heinlein's Future History.

Two other linked series: the Interbeing League stories, and the HARVEST OF STARS books.

Ad astra! Sean


*Or 21 stories and novels, if the disputed "The Chapter Ends" belongs in it.