Wednesday, 21 November 2018

In London

Poul Anderson, The Fleet Of Stars, 12.

Fenn and Wanika visit antiquarian London where they walk in Hyde Park and drink beer in a pub.  In addition to experiencing this preserved reality, they might also have met virtual reconstructions of:

William the Conqueror
Elizabeth the First
Winston Churchill
Diana Leigh (?)
Chaucer
Shakespeare
Pepys
Kipling
Wells
Newton
Faraday
Medawar
Moll Flanders
Wilkins Micawber
Sherlock Holmes

Reading this list, we, or at least I, go through the following thought process:

(i) But the last three are fictional;
(ii) yes but, if virtual reconstructions are possible, then they might just as well be of fictional characters as of historical figures;
(iii) also, Sherlock Holmes is real in the Time Patrol timeline so maybe he is also real in the Harvest of Stars timeline?;
(iv) we are probably not meant to think (iii) but who knows?

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Amusing, using advanced computer technology to create possible virtual reconstruction of fictional characters like Sherlock Holmes! I agree that Poul Anderson probably did not intend us to think the three fictional characters listed here were real in the HARVEST OF STARS timeline. But, who knows?

And I wonder what a virtual reconstruction of Charles II would have been like?

Sean