It would be true but misleading to say just that Poul Anderson wrote a lot of good time travel fiction. What is "time travel fiction" in some people's heads? Spaceships transport characters to adventures in space or on other planets and, similarly, time machines transport them to adventures in historical or future periods? Like the Time Traveller and the Doctor? Yes, in Anderson's "Flight to Forever," near future characters construct a long, cylindrical "time projector" and, travelling inside this primitive temporal vehicle, they explore the furthest future with several encounters and adventures en route.
But the Time Patrol series is the opposite of all that. A twentieth century man joins a time travelling organization founded in 19352 AD and, working for that organization, the Patrol, he conducts missions in several concretely realized historical periods. In The Corridors Of Time, another twentieth century man is drawn into a time war between two future civilizations whose representatives travel up and down history in corridors rotated onto the temporal axis. In There Will Be Time, a twentieth century man finds that he can time travel by an act of will. And that is not a complete list.
"Flight to Forever" is crude pulp magazine fiction especially when contrasted with the increasingly elaborate and sophisticated Time Patrol series. However, it includes several memorable passages, e.g.:
"...he thought with a sadness of the cities and civilizations he had seen rise and spend their little hour and sink back into the night and chaos of time."
-Poul Anderson, "Flight to Forever" IN Anderson, Past Times (New York, 1984), pp. 207-288 AT CHAPTER THREE, p. 238.
"'...this last farewell to the days when we fought with our own hands, and fared between the stars, when we were a small band of sworn comrades whose dreams outstripped our strength.'"
-ibid., CHAPTER SIX, p. 275.
"CREATURE FROM OUT OF TIME, LEAVE THIS PLACE AT ONCE OR THE FORCES WE USE WILL DESTROY YOU!"
-ibid., p. 281.
"So good-by, Sol, he thought. Good-by, and thank you for many million years of warmth and light. Sleep well, old friend." (p. 284)
(Martin Saunders travels further than Wells' Time Traveller.)
And that is a good place to close for this evening.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, pub. as it first was in 1950, "Flight to Forever," was one of Anderson's earlier stories, and it is definitely rough, compared to stories written even a few years later. But it does have evocative, even poignant passages, some of which you have quoted.
Ad astra! Sean
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