Sunday, 11 October 2015

1815-1914

Time Patrol agents know when there are wars and when there are periods of peace. It is possible for a time traveler to base himself in one peaceful period and to leave it for another before war starts. See:

Exempli Gratia;
The Quiet Before The Storm;
Change;
Long To Reign.

The image shows Unter den Linden.

In 1858, Herbert Ganz is safely distant from the Napoleonic War and the First World War. Middle-aged and a confirmed bachelor when recruited to the Time Patrol, he remains Herr Professor at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin. Although an expert in early German history, he rarely time travels "...to anywhere but a superbly equipped office centuries uptime..." - "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth, 1858, " IN Time Patrol (New York, 2006), p. 400.

His hospitality to field operatives like Carl Farness includes:

a gargantuan midday meal;
a nap;
an evening stroll along Unter den Linden;
coffee, cakes and cognac served by a uniformed maid, who then ensures privacy.

Ganz's house is spacious but filled with books and bric-a-brac. His library, where the maid serves coffee etc, has sofas, a chandelier, bookshelves, up-to-date Empire furniture, busts, framed etchings and oils, Chinese-motif wallpaper and maroon drapes.

Peaceful, indeed.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Compared to the chaos of OUR times, the placid, quiet life of Herr Professor Ganz in the 1850's seems idyllic!

Sean