In 1280 A.D.:
Kublai Khan welcomes any guests who bring new knowledge or philosophy;
these include the Venetian merchant, Marco Polo;
there are revolutionary secret societies in Cathay;
Japan has repelled one Mongol invasion;
other important events occur, too numerous to recount here. My source for this information is:
Poul Anderson, "The Only Game in Town" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 129-171 AT p. 133.
After "August," (see also here) Neil Gaiman's Fables And Reflections collects "Soft Places," Gaiman's account of Marco Polo's passage through the Desert of Lop where Marco meets people from his future. In Doctor Who, Marco met the Doctor but did not mention time travel in his memoirs because he thought that it would not be believed.
In "Soft Places," it is suggested that it was the explorers like Marco that froze the world into rigid patterns. See Anti-Magic.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I disagree with Gaiman saying that explorers like Marco Polo helped to freeze the world into rigid patterns. MY view is that explorers, and the discoveries they make, in all fields, tend to SHAKE up things. And this can have consequences both bad and good.
Sean
Paul:
With regard to, "In Doctor Who, Marco met the Doctor but did not mention time travel in his memoirs because he thought that it would not be believed."
Legend says that on Polo's deathbed, friends and relatives implored him to confess that his memoirs were tall tales (so as not to die a liar), but he replied, "I have not told half of what I saw!"
David,
That proves it then!
Paul.
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