"'The work is, you understand, somewhat unusual,'" said Mr Gordon (p. 1).
"'Let's go,' Everard said, and led them away." (p. 765)
(The men whom he is leading are carrying "plunder", as if they belonged to a much earlier era, but there is a good reason for this at the time.)
These are the opening and concluding sentences of the Time Patrol series. What a long way we have come. We want to know what happens to Everard, and Wanda, next. They have caught the last Exaltationist and have learned the meaning of the Patrol but there are still Neldorians at large and the Patrol never has a dearth of problems even without temporal criminals.
However, we are grateful that Anderson wrote so much more after the original four-story series. At one stage, I knew of The Guardians Of Time and Time Patrolman but inquired as to whether Anderson had written any more about the Time Patrol and was delighted to be informed of The Shield Of Time.
This is the series that I reread most often although it has strong competition from Anderson's History of Technic Civilization.
3 comments:
Hi, Paul!
Thank you for the long discussion you have given us of the Time Patrol series. You have made points about this or that aspect of the stories I had never hitherto made. Esp. the ones about how alternate, apparently "nullified" timelines must have logically continued to to exist. What happened to the "Carthaginian" time line we saw in "Delenda est"? Was it destroyed, "nullified" as Manse Everard thought, or did it survive on its own time path? The bit you quoted from one of Poul Anderson's letters to you on these very points also was very interesting.
One point puzzles me, however, about your discussion of the Time Patrol stories--you offered us no comments about Sandra Miesel's essay on the Time Patrol: "Of Time and the Rover" (to be found in the paperback THE GUARDIANS OF TIME). Did she make points about the Time Patrol stories you agreed or disagreed with?
Sean
Sean,
Thanks. Despite posting "Beginning And Ending," I have not finished with the Time patrol yet and will certainly reread Sandra Miesel's essay.
Paul.
Hi, Paul!
Oops! I thought you had reached the end of this discussion of the Time Patrol stories. And I'm curious to know what you think of Sandra Miesel's essay.
I wish I knew of some non intrusive means of contacting Sandra Miesel. I would have liked to have told her of your Anderson blog. And even hope she might have left comments here!
Sean
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