Saturday 3 March 2018

Technic History And Time Patrol

It is good that Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series and Technic History are fundamentally distinct and dissimilar but also that many particular comparisons can be made between them. See recent posts and here. (Scroll down.) For a comparison made almost six years ago, see Parallel Passages. These two passages are so similar that the later must have been based on the earlier.

The Time Patrol and the Technic History do not exist in the same universe or even in the same multiverse although I have speculated about a megamultiverse. However, when phrases and narratives resonate as demonstrated in "Parallel Passages," this underlines that the texts share not only an author but also a theme: how do competent human beings respond to crises that are not of their making but that nevertheless demand their response? Manse Everard and Dominic Flandry will never meet except maybe in the Old Phoenix (although even that seems unlikely) but they are one in the competence of their responses to crises.

(The single mutable timeline of the Time Patrol universe must be at a far remove from the many parallel timelines of the Old Phoenix multiverse.)

3 comments:

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Kaor, Paul!

When seriously examined I find the parallel universes of THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS and the Old Phoenix more plausible than the single but mutable timeline of the Time Patrol. I like how THREE HEARTS begins with a very good explanation of how there might actually be parallel or alternate universes.

Sean


paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
The Time Patrol, like the Time Machine, presents the paradox of excellent sf with an incoherent premise.
Paul.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Kaor, Paul!

True, but your ingenious commentary about the Time Patrol stories managed to make the premise at least thinkable. So much so that Poul Anderson came to agree with your argument.

Sean