Monday 12 June 2017

To The End And Beyond II

See To The End And Beyond.

The post refers to thirteen titles. However:

Cities In Flight is a tetralogy of which The Triumph Of Time is a volume;

the Phaedo and the Fourth Gospel are relevant to The Great Divorce but otherwise a bit off-topic.

If we focus on ten titles, then six contain the word "Time" and the remaining four imply it:

Lewis' "Great Divorce" is between Heaven and Hell which are eternal but approached through time;

"Flight to Forever" is explicitly temporal;

"starfaring" involves time dilation;

divine warfare has temporal consequences.

The single word, "Time," can have many significances. Poul Anderson's The Shield Of Time is the sequel to his Time Patrol and both titles describe the same organization whereas James Blish's The Quincunx Of Time is not a sequel to his The Triumph Of Time although there are conceptual links like the Dirac transmitter and an intergalactic setting. The Triumph Of Time means not, as I had thought, that, given time, we will triumph but the opposite, that time will triumph over us. The Quincunx Of Time refers instead to the physics of time, its possible multidimensionality.

Lastly, the post refers to ultimate futures but misses Anderson's Two Ways to survive the end of the universe.

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