The Exaltationist Saga III

(The Ian M Banks novel has style but I am not yet sure about its substance.)

Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006).

As noted in the previous post, the first six pages of "The Year Of The Ransom" are headed "10 September 1987" and narrated by Wanda Tamberly. The next eight pages are headed "3 June 1533 [Julian calender]" and narrated in the third person from the point of view of the Conquistador Castelar who is in conversation with the Franciscan Esteban Tanaquil. Castelar and Tanaquil, like Wanda, are captured by someone on what we recognize as a timecycle.

Next, just over twelve pages, headed "15 April 1610", are narrated in the third person from the point of view of Stephen Tamberly, Time Patrolman, whose alias in 1533 had been Esteban Tanaquil. Captured by about thirty Exaltationists based in the deserted Machu Picchu, Tamberly, uncle of Wanda, is interrogated by Merau Varagan. If we read the series in the order of events as experienced by the characters, which is not the order presented in Time Patrol, then this is our first knowledge of Varagan. Knowing that Machu Picchu is unvisited until 1911, the Exaltationists can safely hide there - although they allow themselves to be seen arriving and departing by the locals in order to keep them away.

Castelar, escaping, stabs Varagan but "...wasted no time finishing him." (p. 666) "...Ransom" is carefully written as a prequel to the first published account of the Exaltationists so Varagan cannot be killed here although it would have saved a lot of trouble if he were. Similarly, Castelar stuns Raor. I do not think that Anderson would have known yet that she would later become the villainess of the last Exaltationist story.

About two thirds of p. 667, headed "May 2937 A.D.", are still Tamberly pov but now he and Castelar are alone, having stolen one of the Exaltationists' timecycles.

The next section, fourteen pages preceded by two lines at the end of p. 667, is headed "3 November 1885". At last, we are back on familiar territory. Not only is our point of view character Manson Everard but he sets of in a hansom cab from Dalhousie and Roberts, Importers, the Time Patrol London base, which he previously visited in 1894 on p. 21. We were told in that first story that the Time Patrol's Western milieu HQ for 1850-2000 is in London, 1890-1910. I had inferred that Dalhousie and Roberts was the HQ but here we see it existing before 1890 and referred to only as "...the Time Patrol's London base in this milieu..." (pp. 667-668).

Everard interviews Helen Tamberly about her missing husband and learns of a"'...favorite niece...'" (p. 676). The Tamberlys live on "...York Place [which] divided Baker Street." (p. 677) Everard meets two famous residents of Baker St in 1894.

On pp. 682-685, headed "30 October 1986", Wanda, again the first person narrator, is interviewed by "Mr Everard..." (p. 682) about her missing Uncle Steve. She mentions:

"'I've got a summer job lined up. Tourist guide in the Galapagos Islands.'" (p. 684)

- which is where we met her on 10 September 1987. After Wanda and Everard, we are back, for ten pages, with Castelar and Stephen Tamberly in 2937 B.C., and that is as far as I will take us at present. I summarize all this to demonstrate how skillfully Anderson alternates between points of view and dates in later Time Patrol stories.