Friday 15 July 2022

The Early Time Patrol Series

Publication order of the original four-part Time Patrol series in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction:

"Time Patrol," May 1955
"Delenda Est," December 1955
"Brave To Be A King," August 1959
"The Only Game in Town," January 1960

In "Time Patrol," Manse Everard is recruited into the Time Patrol in New York in 1954. In "Delenda Est," the last time he was in New York was in 1960 and he has worked with Unattached agent Piet Van Sarawak before. Thus, time has elapsed in Everard's career. Later there are references to missions that are not in any of the stories.

Later in the series, the stories follow more closely on each other's heels. "Death and the Knight" interrupts a holiday begun at the end of The Shield Of Time which in turn begins immediately after Everard has returned home from the mission recounted in "Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks." As well as continuing the series after 1990, Poul Anderson could have gone back and filled in some of the earlier gaps, like with an Everard-Van Sarawak mini-series.

1 comment:

S.M. Stirling said...

Fiction -should- give the reader the sense that things are happening outside the immediate orbit of the p.o.v. characters -- that there's a world (or universe) out there.