Four successive headings are:
300-302
2319
302-330
1980
In the twenty fourth and twentieth centuries, Time Patrol colleagues discuss Carl Farness' fourth century experiences with him.
300 ends with the birth of Carl's son, Dagobert, immediately followed by the death of the boy's mother, Jorith.
300-330 ends with Dagobert leading the Teurings, including his own son, Tharasmund, south from the Vistula to the Dnieper.
From the vantage point of a time traveler based in the twentieth century, Anderson immerses his readers in historical fiction about generations of Goths in a period of change:
"...a Roman lord hight Constantine had finally put down his rivals and become master of the whole Empire." (p. 383)
This is a unique synthesis of science fiction with historical fiction.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I agree "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" is a masterful synthesis of two genres: historical fiction and SF. But I don't think that was the only example written by Poul Anderson. I suggest "Star of the Sea" as another synthesis of historical fiction and SF.
Sean
Sean,
Yes. I should have included "Star Of The Sea." Also, these two works are short novels, each of them long and substantial enough to have been published as a single volume. Together, I think of them as THE GODS OF TIME.
Paul.
One thing I found amusing about Carl's early time among them was that when stories and songs were exchanged, he told them not only of factual things and tales that already were told elsewhere by that time (Samson and Deirdre among the latter), but of "Crockett the hunter...."
The mental picture of 4th-century Goths, every now and then for perhaps as much as a generation or two, singing about "Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier" -- it really tickles me.
Kaor, Paul!
I like your suggestion, made at other times, that if a story is a hundred pages or more, it should be considered a novel. "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" is not quite that long (about 94 pages), but "Star of the Sea" is over 100 pages long and can be considered a novel. And THE GODS OF TIME would be a good title for a book collecting those two stories separately.
Sean
Hi, David!
And I think Carl Farness would have told his Gothic friends these stories about "Lord Crockett" only if he was sure they would soon fade away and leave no discernible evidence among the Goths and literate contemporaries.
Sean
Sean,
"The Sorrow..." is 133 pages in the paperback TIME PATROL.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
It's an arbitrary rule, I agree, but I prefer to use hardbacks for deciding if a story should be considered a novel. My hardback copy of THE TIMIE PATROL has the actual text of "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" beginning on page 209 and ending at page 289. So, by the 100 pages rule, "Sorrow" is not a novel.
I am aware that because of the smaller size of many paperbacks, stories need more pages (page inflation you could say!). My suggestion is we get a more accurate idea of whether a story is a novel by using hard covers.
Sean
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