Concurrent Reading

In recent posts, we have discussed time travel in works by Poul Anderson and SM Stirling. I am reading Stirling's Nantucket Trilogy for the first time and rereading passages of Anderson's Time Patrol as appropriate. Meanwhile, I am also reading Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy for the third time. This has led to some comparisons with Anderson on the nature of intelligence work and on the relationships between sf and other genres.

Authors compete for readers' attention. Stirling moves a large cast of characters around the world but this requires frequent changes of scene and, when there is a scene change, I want to get back to Larsson who is particularly intriguing when he describes Constitutional Protection discretely investigating the Section whose secret task is to investigate everyone else in the Security Police. However, when Larsson changes the scene back to his title character in her hospital bed, I want to return to reading and posting about time travel. Thus, progress is steady but slow. Sic itur ad astra.