Futures Reassess Pasts II

(Roman remains, Lancaster.)

See here.

If we are to understand a fictitious future, then we must understand its, very different, perspective on our present and past. A character in William Morris' News From Nowhere refers to "...those poor wretches of the twentieth century."

Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series has time travelers active throughout history whereas his The Boat Of A Million Years has a small group of immortals surviving through history into an indefinite future. Jerry Pournelle's and SM Stirling's "The Hall of the Mountain King" has "the Brotherhood" surviving through history into the period of the Man-Kzin Wars. We learn that Frederick Barbarossa and Lenin were members who rebelled and were crushed.

I would have appreciated a historical novel by Anderson featuring a character whom the reader recognizes as a time traveler or an immortal but only from having read other works. Historical novels assuming the active presence of the Brotherhood would certainly present a different perspective!