In Tarragona, we saw a ruined Visigothic church inside a ruined Roman amphitheater (see image) and were interviewed by Spanish TV about why we were there.
The juvenile hero of Poul Anderson's "The Little Monster" (1974) travels from 1995 to the Pliocene Period in Spain.
Earlier but in a different timeline, the Time Patrol has a base at the southern end of Iberia during the hundred years of the inflow from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, an event that ends the Miocene and initiates the Pliocene epoch.
Much later, Hannibal Barca leads men and elephants up through Spain, the Pyrenees and Gaul and across the Alps into Italy. In the Alps, he is joined and helped by two Neldorian time bandits and later burns Rome.
Later again, Time Patrolman Carl Farness' great grandson, Alawin:
"'...died, at a ripe old age, in the kingdom which by then the Visigoths had carved out for themselves in southern Gaul. Descendants of his took a leading part in founding the Spanish nation.'"
-Poul Anderson, "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 333-465 AT p. 462.
An Anderson fan brings this perspective to a holiday in Spain.
Past Times, which includes "The Little Monster," and Time Patrol are an amazing contrast as two time travel collections by a single author.
5 comments:
Glad your holiday went well!
Thank you and it is good to be back in the Roman encampment of Lancaster, the "castra" by the River Lune, and back on the blog.
Kaor, Paul!
I did suggest in a slightly earlier comment that it would have been cool to be coming back from a trip to the Moon or an O'Neill habitat! That is, alas, still science FICTIONAL.
I am interested in how you got interviewed by Spanish TV! What did you talk about? Did you mention Poul Anderson or S.M. Stirling?
And some of Alawin's descendants might well have been ancestors to the Kings of Castile and Aragon, and thus of King Philip VI of Spain today!
I hope you got the link to that article by John Wright discussing time travel stories. I was disappointed that he made no mention of Anderson's VASTLY substantial contributions to that subgenre of SF, both short stories of the kind collected in PAST TIMES and novels suc THE CORRIDORS OF TIME, THE DANCER FROM ATLANTIS, THERE WILL BE TIME, and above all, Anderson's Time Patrol series.
Sean
Sean,
Alas, the TV interview was very brief. While standing in a tourist site, we were approached by a team with a camera and mike and asked why we were there. We enthused about Spain and its history and the mike-woman translated. No guarantee that it was or will be shown.
Thank you, I received the John Wright time travel link, have added the link on "Logic of Time Travel" and might post about Wright's article.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Noted, what you said about the TV interview being brief and how there is no guarantee it will be shown. Quite natural and proper to comment on Spanish history.
I will be interested if you do comment on Wright's article. I think he was right about Heinlein's "By His Bootstraps." And Wright thought very well of Keith Laumer's DINOSAUR BEACH. Still disappointed by him not mentioning Anderson's contributions.
Sean
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