The Time Machine And The Time Patrol II

Wells would present an idea, then rule out a sequel - the Time Traveler fails to return, the Cavorite Sphere is lost - whereas Poul Anderson's "Time Patrol" was clearly written to initiate a series. Manson Everard is recruited to the Time Patrol. Further adventures can and do follow.

Wells would have done better to write either sequels or new, original "Fantastic and Imaginative Romances," rather than repetitive social propaganda. CS Lewis remarked somewhere that Wells "...sold his birthright for a pot of message...," although some people might say that of Lewis.

Sequels allow for development and refinement of fictional concepts. Neldorian time bandits are replaced as the collective villain by the more sophisticated Exaltationist egoists. There is a much more detailed discussion of historical causality violation in The Shield Of Time than in "Delenda Est." And a new idea is introduced: causality violation not by extra-temporal intervention but by random space-time-energy fluctuation.