time travel;
past alien visits;
mutant immortals surviving through history.
(Magical immortality is fantasy. Thus, Hanno in Poul Anderson's The Boat Of A Million Years is an unaging mutant whereas Hob Gadling in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman has an agreement with personified Death. Hanno can be killed by accident or violence whereas, whatever happens to Hob, Death will not touch him unless he asks her to.)
We saw that SM Stirling's and David Drake's futuristic sf novel, The Forge, draws on Constantinople and Cromwell. This led to the observation that Anderson's Time Patrol would have to protect Cromwell's Dissolution of the Long Parliament which side-tracked us onto discussing a Time Patrol story, "Star of the Sea."
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
That image you chose of Churchill's history of WW II reminded me of his discussion in THE GATHERING STORM of how Hitler decided he would become a politician. WSC laid some stress on how Hitler's rage and grief at receiving the news of Germany's acceptance of the Armistice made Adolf resolve to enter politics. With simply unimaginable consequences!
And we do see Hanno's old companion and fellow mutant immortal, Rufus, getting quite needlessly killed.
Been rereading Drake/Stirling's THE FORGE very fast the past few days. Already in Chapter 12, where we see Raj Whitehall preparing to meet Tewfik's army in battle at the eastern frontier city of Sandoral. And I had been noticing the parallels with Eastern Roman history and the authors near word for word quoting of Cromwell.
Sean
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