Verbals And Visuals

Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series deserves to be adapted into a visual medium although Anderson does his best with words alone. At the peak of the series, Everard and Wanda converse with a Danellian on a beach in 1990, then they are in a hotel suite overlooking San Francisco Bay, then Everard is in Harfleur (see image) and Paris in 1307.

Harfleur, the chief port in northwestern France, is also the location of Time Patrol operational headquarters. As ever, Everard makes the port real through several senses:

wavy light through the glass in the cames;
"...Asian-like clamor off the street below..." ("Death And The Knight" IN Time Patrol, p. 753);
cathedral bells;
smells (do we want another list of those?);
"...a sense of crackling energy." (p. 754)

"Asian-like" is well observed and evokes another continent. The sense of energy comes from "...a rookery of merchant adventurers..." (ibid.) who "...a few life-times hence...would set sail for the New World." (ibid.) - two more continents. And Everard has just come directly from San Francisco, 1990! What does that do for his sense of historical perspective?