Friday, 1 June 2018

On Other Blogs

Over breakfast yesterday, I published the 180th post on this blog for May, then let the blog rest for twenty four hours. Meanwhile, I have posted on:

Comics Appreciation here;
Religion and Philosophy here;
Logic of Time Travel here.

In fact, here is the text of the Logic of Time Travel post:

HG Wells' Time Traveler sends the small model Time Machine into either the past or the future. He does not know which. There is no way for it to stop or return. Poul Anderson's Time Patrolmen communicate between years by tiny robot shuttles with automatic shunts to prevent them from arriving together.

Manse Everard sends a shuttle from his New York apartment in 1954 to the London office, June 25, 1894, and, a few minutes later, receives a typed note from J. Mainwethering, inviting him to attend with a qualified British agent at 12:00 midnight on June 26, 1894. Getting an ok (by phone?) from his immediate superior, Everard sends a note to Whitcomb in 1947 and Whitcomb agrees.

Going to the Patrol warehouse, Everard gets a timecycle, like a motorcycle without wheels or kickstand but with two saddles and an antigravity propulsion unit. He departs to a warehouse in London, 1947, when he is joined by Whitcomb, and they depart for Mainwethering's gas-lit office in 1894.

Like Wells updated. 

From The Time Machine to "Time Patrol" - two endlessly reread classics. Anderson also incorporates elements of Twain and de Camp as well as of Wells.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I would expect Time Patrol agents, and and when appropriate and useful, to use the technology of the eras they were posted to communicate with each other. So, Patrol agents in the 20th/21st centuries would use telephones (with due regard for security).

Sean