(i) Although HG Wells' Time Traveler tells his dinner guests that long ago he had an inkling of a machine that would travel in any direction of space or time, what he eventually constructs is the Time Machine that remains stationary on the Earth's surface like the time projector in Poul Anderson's "Flight to Forever" or the mutant time travelers in Anderson's There Will Be Time. Thus, in this context, we acknowledge the Time Traveler's inkling but not his invention. (Anderson's The Corridors Of Time with time travelers literally walking or driving along the temporal axis makes a more creative use of Time as the Fourth Dimension than does the seminal The Time Machine.)
(ii) The Time Lords' TARDISes can travel to any place or time in the universe.
(iii) The Time Patrol's timecycles can travel to any place or time on Earth.
(iv) By rotating around one of the many T-machines in Anderson's The Avatar, an interplanetary spaceship can travel to other points in space-time.
(v) After a fruitless millennium-long slower than light search for a terrestroid extra-solar planet, the crew of The Solarian learn how to search instead through space-time and find Earth of fifty thousand years ago. Thus, The Solarian uniquely is first a generation ship, then a space-time vehicle.
Sometimes, we appreciate Poul Anderson by locating him in the context of Wells and others and also by showing that he usually contributes more. Thus, this post refers to five of his works - and here is a sixth: in The Dancer From Atlantis, a vehicle called the anakro travels along a great circle on the Earth's surface. Thus, it is yet another kind of space-time vehicle.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I have to admit I thought Edmund Cooper's idea of using a STL generation ship to search for terrestroid planets inhabitable for human beings not plausible. Because I think a generation ship is too SLOW for exploratory purposes. I think real generation ships would be used for going to locations its crews reasonably believe will be of USE to them. Such as was the case for the "Astra," in Poul Anderson's "Recruiting Nation" in TALES OF THE FLYING MOUNTAINS.
Sean
Sean,
I agree, THE SOLARIAN was launched in desperation from a dying Earth but would a dying planet have been capable of such a feat?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I doubt it. In extreme cases of that kind, it would be more practical to build O'Neill style habitats. Unless the star was going nova!
Sean
Sean,
In any case, it is the desperation of the launch (Earth's dying gasp) that explains why an STL generation ship is being used for exploration.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But that is the problem, using something as slow as a generation ship for exploratory purposes. For THAT you want, NEED something faster. No, the premise for Cooper's book is weak.
Sean
Sean,
But they only had time to launch an STL ship before Earth expired as a result of a nuclear war.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I shouldn't criticize Cooper's book too harshly. After all, he pub. this story about about a STL generation ship long before O'Neill pub. THE HIGH FRONTIER, in which he advocated the building of large habitats using the resources of the Solar System. O'Neill simply were not being THOUGHT of in the 1950's. But, even so, Cooper's premise strikes me as being weak.
Sean
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