Anderson's Time Patrol series includes "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" in which a Time Patrolman from the twentieth century interacts with four generations of a Gothic family. Thus, a time travel series incorporates generational historical fiction. The later Time Patrol instalment, "Star of the Sea," also includes mythological writing.
Anderson's Psychotechnic History includes "The Troublemakers," which, set inside a multi-generational interstellar spaceship, summarizes the first eighty years/four generations of the internal history of the spaceship.
Thus, in Poul Anderson's works, time travel and space travel both generate histories within histories.
See History In The Pioneer.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I agree, with the Time Patrol stories you cited being more sophisticated and deeply thought out than "The Troublemakers."
Ad astra! Sean
Poul got better at implications as time went on. The Time Patrol series is an illustration. But even the early stories implied that the Time Patrol -made- history, it didn't just preserve it -- scrubbing that Mongol expedition to North America, for example.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Yes, even the earliest Time Patrol stories gives us evidence of how superior they were to most of the Psychotechnic series. I consider VIRGIN PLANET one of the best of them.
Ad astra! Sean
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