Anderson's mass produced, streamlined Time Patrol timecycles are like later models of Wells' elaborate nineteenth century contraption whereas Anderson's evolved Danellians contrast with Wells' devolved Eloi.
Anderson updates Stapledonian cosmic sf and succeeds but also surpasses Heinlein.
Tolkien and Anderson independently adapted Norse mythology as modern fiction.
Anderson surpasses Asimov at nearly everything but the latter excels at robots.
Anderson alone addresses time travel comprehensively.
SM Stirling surpasses Anderson in alternative histories.
Anderson wrote three standard mystery novels whereas Alan Moore wrote a graphic fictionalized account of real murders. See A Murder.
Dornford Yates not only wrote a standard mystery novel, Ne'er-Do-Well, but also incorporated accounts of the Crippen case into two other novels, having, as a barrister, worked on the prosecution of Crippen who, being a real life murderer, not only did not practice any elaborate deceptions but also made several serious mistakes.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
We see Daneillians briefly and only twice in Anderson's Time Patrol stories. The first occasion, near the end of "Time Patrol," made the Danellians seem very inhuman: "He [Manse] could not look at the shape which blazed away before his eyes." But, much later, when Manse and Wanda Tamberly met a Danellian near the end of THE SHIELD OF TIME (in "Amazement of the World"), he or she was far less menacing in appearance: "A robe, cowled like a Christian monk's, dull yellow like a Buddhist's, enveloped a medium-sized frame. The face was not epicene--strong-boned, full-lipped, slightly aged--but it might be either male or female, as might the voice. Nor was the race clear: he, if he it was seemed to blend white, black, Oriental, and more in harmony."
How are we to reconcile this seeming inconsistency between the "alienness" of the first, admittedly terse description with the sheer normality of the second? Are we to assume the Danellians were humans who had CHANGED so much they could change their shapes at will or did Anderson decide that physically the Danellians remained "normal" compared to earlier men?
Sean
Sean,
There might be very many different periods of Danellians.
paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And that would be true of any long lived nation or people. But I'm inclined to think Anderson came to decide it was not very plausible to imagine a race being able to "blaze away." I have an article somewhere in which Anderson expressed strong doubt about it being likely that human beings will physically change much, if at all, in the future. I'll have to make sure I didn't misplace it!
Sean
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