Work And Relaxation

Rereading Poul Anderson has not ceased to be enjoyable but has become work, utilizing study skills developed during years at Dublin and Lancaster Universities. It has become necessary to take notes, find cross-references and think for blogging purposes. That is why today, incapacitated by a cold, I am avoiding Harvest Of Stars and instead rereading graphic fiction purely for relaxation.

Fantasy and science fiction extend but also reflect reality. Even while presenting an alternative twentieth century history dominated by super heroes, Garth Ennis makes us feel World War II, the transformation of the OSS into the CIA, the Cold War and the Korean War. Although Poul Anderson mainly focuses on other, both past and future, centuries, several decades of the twentieth century also feature in some of his works and we wonder whether the Time Patrol had to oversee the transition from the OSS, which survives in SM Stirling's Draka History, to the CIA.