Friday 3 March 2023

The Time Traveller And The Psychotechnician II

Poul Anderson tells us what the psychotechnician sees, hears and smells:

Solis Township
the ruined Sol City
wooded hills
fields
orchards
distant glittering sea
farm buildings
cattle
winding gravel roads
marble and granite walls

wheels
wooden clogs
shouting children

leaf mold
ploughed earth
trees
gardens
salt
kelp
fish

The Time Traveller tells us what he does not hear:

"All the sounds of man, the bleating of sheep, the cries of birds, the hum of insects, the stir that makes the background of our lives - all that was over."
-The Time Machine, 14, p. 94.

Anderson's text describes the last days of human life on Earth but not an end to life as such. Both are imaginative extrapolations of the far future.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I don't really like "Sol City" as the name of the capital of the long vanished Empire mentioned in "Chapter." I far prefer the "Archopolis" coined by Anderson for the capital of the Terran Empire we see in the Technic stories. It feels more real and is much more evocative (meaning "City of the Ruler").

Ad astra! Sean