Monday 3 August 2015

Times and Places


(Big digression: Sometimes I try to create evocative titles for these posts. I think that "Times And Places" is quite a good one. All that you have to do is to remember your own life: where were you when and what happened there then? I heard of a novel where the unifying theme was what a man saw from the windows of several rooms where he stayed throughout his career starting, of course, with his childhood bedroom which I imagine that he revisited later in the narrative. I also think that "Time And Tide" is an evocative phrase but have not yet thought of a post to suit it.)

A fictitious series often familiarizes its readers with imagined places: where the central character lives, works etc. In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series:

Manse Everard's New York apartment appears in the first three stories and reappears several times later, from 1955 to 1990;

we also see New York in the 1930's, when the Farnesses "...occupied a huge flat overlooking Central Park..." (Time Patrol, p. 344);

the Patrol Academy and Pleistocene Lodge are introduced in Time Patrol and both reappear at appropriate moments in The Shield Of Time;

the Academy is also the venue for "A worried conference..." (p. 220) in "Delenda Est";

Everard visits Dalhousie & Roberts Importers, the Patrol's London office 1890-1910, twice in the series;

we see another Patrol vacation venue although only once - a pre-Polynesian Hawaiian resort that exists for thousands of years but where the Farnesses are lucky to get a cottage for a month in 43 AD (pp. 459-463) and they see the evening star over Mauna Kea.

We understand that the Patrol is vast and would like to be shown more of its bases and facilities throughout history and prehistory.

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