Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series is a culmination of causality violation. What would be a corresponding work of alternative history? Unfortunately, I have as yet read very few novels or series by Andre Norton, H. Beam Piper or Harry Turtledove, although I understand that Piper's Paratime Police are a sort of opposite number of the Time Patrol.
Of the alternative histories that I have read, SM Stirlings' are consistently superb, in particular The Peshawar Lancers and Conquistador. ...Lancers shows us not only an alternative history but also its corresponding literature and art.
Appropriately, the single Time Patrol story written by Stirling addresses one of the most important speculative questions of alternative history: what would the twentieth century have been like without the assassination at Sarajevo? Thus, this story is a major synthesis of these two temporal themes.
5 comments:
kaor, Paul!
I'm no longer as much a fan of Harry Turtledove as I used to be, but I still like his Basil Argyros stories. These are set in an alternate world where Mohammed became a Christian and never founded Islam. Most of these stories can found in AGENT OF BYZANTIUM (which reminds me of Poul Anderson's AGENT OF THE TERRAN EMPIRE).
And I absolutely agree with your comments S.M. Stirling's PESHAWAR LANCERS and CONQUISTADOR! I would include as well his fascinatingly gruesome Draka books.
We get some hints about what might have happened if the Sarajevo assassination had not occurred, in Stirling's Time Patrol story. Austria-Hungary remained a great power, indeed she seemed to actually become stronger than Germany. At any rate, Austria-Hungary was the senior partner in the Triple Alliance of herself, Germany, and Ottoman Turkey. But there were ominous signs: the alliance was an unhappy one.
Sean
*The Crossroads of Time* by Norton (and its sequel, *Quest Crosstime*), mentioned in my comment for "All the Alternative Histories," is comparable to the Paratime Police series in showing the operations of a law enforcement group, the Wardsmen.
Turtledove has done a "young adult" series which directly salutes Piper by having its Crosstime technology developed by people with names based on those Piper used: for Piper, the developers were Ghaldron and Hesthor, while for Turtledove, they're Galbraith and Hester. Turtledove's series doesn't involve an actual police agency; instead, the corporation controlling crosstime traffic does its best to regulate itself so the government won't step in.
Hi, David!
And if my memory is correct this "Crosstime Corporation" tries to VERY discreetly introduce ideas about science and technology in timelines with less developed technology. With the view of encouraging such alternate Earths developing a true science.
Sean
Sean:
I haven't read the greater portion of Turtledove's Crosstime series, in fact, but my impression was the opposite: rather like Piper's Paracops, Crosstime Traffic (its official name) wanted to PREVENT other timelines developing advanced technology -- because that might lead to those lines becoming competitors ... or invaders. They wouldn't actually SABOTAGE tech development, I believe, but they certainly weren't trying to assist it in any of the stories I read or skimmed.
True, Crosstime Traffic's agents sometimes sold gadgets that were far enough advanced by local standards to start people speculating, though the stuff was outdated in the home timeline. But that was through NEGLIGENCE, not policy, and noted as a problem. (For one thing, it might cause the government to take a greater role in regulating the corporation.)
The book *The Gladiator* DID have Crosstime Traffic discreetly working to introduce POLITICAL ideas -- because that was a universe where the Soviets conquered the world (Kennedy backed off on the Cuban missiles, the US pulled out of 'Nam in '68 ... and the dominoes fell...).
Hi, David!
Dang! I seem to be wrong about Turtledove's Crosstime series. I do remember in GUNPOWDER EMPIRE one of the characters thinking that introducing gadgets slightly ahead of the level reached by the alternate Earth would encourage a true science.
I can only conclude I need to seriously read Turtledove's Crosstime books!
Sean
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