Thursday 2 February 2017

Time And Length

In Poul Anderson's The Corridors Of Time, corridors constructed in normal space are rotated onto the temporal axis. Thus, anyone who walks or drives along such a corridor can exit in an earlier or later century.

In Alan Moore's Jerusalem, one feature of the hereafter is a long corridor parallel to the world lines of the mortal world. Thus, ghosts can walk into what the living regard as the remote past or future.

That is a textual and conceptual parallel. Moore's novel incorporates historical, contemporary and futuristic fiction and fantasy. He is comparable to Anderson in imagination and opposite in politics. We are enriched by reading both.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

From the POV of physics and engineering I did wonder how a PHYSICAL tunnel could be rotated into the temporal dimension to enable time travelers to go to the past or future. But, of course Anderson was imagining drastic advances in our knowledge of such things, thus enabling time corridors to be built.

And THE CORRIDORS OF TIME shows us Anderson using the immutable rather than mutable concept of time traveling.

Sean