Although I recently compared SM Stirling's Angrezi Raj to Poul Anderson's Terran Empire, the two imaginary worlds of this post are the timelines of the Angrezi Raj and of Anderson's Time Patrol.
The Patrol prevents divergent timelines whereas Stirling's seeress, Yasmini, tries to prevent an end-of-life-on-Earth timeline;
in the Patrol timeline, John Watson recounts the real adventures of Sherlock Holmes whereas, in the Angrezi Raj timeline, Conan Doyle recounts the fictional adventures of a detective in an alternative timeline...
Common to these timelines and ours is Bradshaw's Guide.
"Mainwethering consulted his Bradshaw. 'You can get the 8:23 out of Charing Cross tomorrow morning,' he said."
-Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006), p. 23.
""The Lancer officer dug into one of the bundles, pulling out a copy of Bradshaw's Indian
Imperial Railways, by Newmans of Calcutta, and lost himself in thought."
SM Stirling, The Peshawar Lancers (New York,2003), p. 343.
I posted about Bradshaw before. The subject of Bradshaw has come up again because, on Sheila's birthday yesterday, her presents included the dvd's of Michael Portillo's third, fourth and fifth TV series based on Bradshaw. Thus, Bradshaw ties together our three timelines.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, I recall the mentions of Bradshaw's invaluable guide by you. And how it was mentioned in both the Sherlock Holmes stories and in Anderson's "Time Patrol."
I can think of an INTERSTELLAR analogy to "Bradshaw's" in Poul Anderson's Technic History. Chapter 1 of ENSIGN FLANDRY is prefaced by a quote from the
PILOT'S MANUAL AND EPHEMERIS, CIS-BETELGEUSEAN ORIONIS SECTOR, 53rd edition.
Sean
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