3 Series In 2 Volumes; 2 Series In 3 Volumes

I have marched through Manchester in the rain but am now back home so let's return to fictional realms and maybe also to the last post on this blog for September.

(However, look for six new posts on four other blogs:

Science Fiction;
Logic of Time Travel;
Personal and Literary Reflections;
Religion and Philosophy.)

This is how I think that these five series could be presented.

In 2 Omnibus Volumes Each

Robert Heinlein's Future History
Volume I ending with indentured servitude on Venus and Nehemiah Scudder's movement growing on Earth...

Questions for Volume II: How will Scudder's theocracy be overthrown and what kind of society will result from its overthrow?

Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History
Volume I ending with the descent of Earth into the Second Dark Ages...

Question for Volume II: when civilization is restored, will the psychotechnic project be resumed?

Anderson's Time Patrol Series
Volume I ending with the arrest of Merau Varagan but not of the last Exaltationists...

Question for Volume II: When the last Exaltationists have been caught, what other problems must the Patrol address?

In 3 Omnibus Volumes Each

Sherlock Holmes (See here)

Volume I ending with Holmes' apparent death.
Volume II: two earlier cases.
Volume III beginning with Holmes' return.

James Bond
Volume I ending with Bond's apparent death.
Volume II: recuperation; last of SMERSH; short stories.
Volume III: SPECTRE, Blofeld and aftermath.

Connections Between These Series
The Psychotechnic History was modeled on the Future History.
The first Time Patrol story is a spin-off from an untold Holmes case.
Bond is referenced in Anderson's non-series time travel novel, The Corridors Of Time.

One More?
I think that, of John Sanders' five Nicholas Pym novels, two (not just one) are set after Oliver Cromwell's death. If so, then this would provide a good basis for two omnibus collections.

Pym launches Henry Morgan as a privateer. Baynes joins Morgan. Some descriptive passages are worthy of Anderson:

"...Pym permitted himself a final glance at the sky and the sea. It was a beautiful sunset, the sky orange and crimson, the sea flecked with gold, except on the black shadow cast by the island."
-John Sanders, The Hat Of Authority (London, 1966), 17, p. 216.

"The sun was a scarlet elipse just touching the emptiness of the Atlantic horizon, and sea birds were wheeling and swooping above his head, mewing annoyance at this unexpected invasion of their secluded sanctuary." (p. 217)

The phrase, "...the hat of authority...," is a quotation. See here.

Moriarty And Merau Varagan

Moriarty is introduced and killed in a single story, then exists in a later-written prequel, then his chief of staff is captured in a sequel. That completes the story of the Moriarty organization although two dramatizations have rightly pointed out that the organization would have been involved in the Red-Headed League, which was stated to have involved the top criminal minds in London. Then, of course, some writers have imagined the organization continuing after the arrest of Moran.

Rider Haggard's She was introduced and died in a single novel, then appeared in a later-written prequel and Alan Quatermain crossover, then was resurrected in a sequel. That was the She Trilogy.

Merau Varagan was introduced and captured in a single story, then appeared in a later-written prequel, then reappeared as a prisoner in a flashback in a sequel about his female clone. That completes the story of the Exaltationists.

In that first story, Everard first met Varagan in a flashback. Thus, Poul Anderson's Manson Everard of the Time Patrol fought Exaltationists on four occasions recounted in three stories, now collected in two volumes comprising one series. The occasions happen in the same order for Everard and his enemies which is kind of convenient for author and readers alike. A different order, although perfectly possible, would have complicated matters no end.

Today: Manchester.

"What Did You Do During The War?"

(Admiral Blake.)

Back home. Before leaving this morning, I read a splendid passage which I must quote in full. Poul Anderson fans and regular blog readers will appreciate its significance.

"'Tell me, Baynes,' Pym asked, 'what did you do in the late wars?'
"'I was in the service of Sir Edward Bulstrode, a gentleman close to His Highness Prince Rupert,' Baynes replied with unnerving frankness.
"'What's that,' Pym said, startled.
"'Politics were never the concerns of persons of my quality, sir,' Baynes said reprovingly. 'The fortunes of war took my master to sea when Rupert turned Admiral. There we were unfortunate enough to encounter General Blake, who gave me the choice between entering the Parliament service or being hanged.'
"Pym smiled at the expression on the man's face in the lamplight. Baynes had a plump look about him that suggested a talent for survival.
"'Why didn't you tell us this when you signed the articles?' It was hard to sound harsh after the way Baynes had looked after him.
"'You never asked,' Baynes said simply. 'Your breakfast,' he added, whipping the cover off a tray he had brought in.
"Breakfast. All other considerations vanished as Pym made the discovery that he was ravenous."
-John Sanders, The Hat Of Authority (London, 1966), 16, pp. 193-194.

There are several important lessons here, I think. In Poul Anderson's yarns, we are used to Nicholas van Rijn or Dominic Flandry being served their breakfasts although Flandry is not about to learn that Chives had recently fought on the other side.

On general principle, I would support a Parliament against a King - although I would prefer not to fight about it - but I would not threaten to hang a prisoner. Some of us ask ourselves, "Which side would I have fought on in the Civil War?" but there are others for whom politics are not their concern and how often do we ask: "Would I have changed sides if the alternative was to be hanged?" Baynes is a cheerful, plump survivor rendering faithful service to the suddenly ravenous Colonel Pym.

Now And Later

Soon we depart to the monastery where the temporal is contemplated in the light of the eternal. There will be American monks visiting from Mount Shasta, a name to conjure with. I will probably think of more points to post about while en route. Maybe this evening. Meanwhile, I trust that recent time travel posts are of interest. Some of the implications emerge while posting.

Kinds Of Time Criminals II

See Kinds Of Time Criminals.

I said that I would quote from a Heinlein story when I had access to my copy. (It was in a room where the carpet was being shampooed.)

"Everybody knows now why the Fizzle War of 1963 fizzled. The bomb with New York's number on it didn't go off, a hundred other things didn't go as planned - all arranged by the likes of me."
Robert Heinlein, "- All You Zombies -" IN Heinlein, The Unpleasant Profession Of Jonathan Hoag (London, 1980), pp. 126-137 AT p. 136.

This is what I mean about how time travelers might act as "guardian angels" to a timeline. But there is more:

"But not the Mistake of '72; that one is not our fault - and can't be undone; there's no paradox to resolve. A thing either is, or it isn't, now and forever amen. But there won't be another like it; an order dated '1992' takes precedence any year." (ibid.)

In the hypothetical "Megamultiverse," the timeline of Heinlein's Temporal Bureau is in the corner with the immutable timelines of Anderson's Wardens & Rangers and mutant time travelers, not with the mutable timeline of his Time Patrol.

Heinlein goes further:

"...it's very hard to recruit anyone in the later years, since the Mistake of 1972. Can you think of a better source than to pick people all fouled up where they are and give them well-paid, interesting (even though dangerous) work in a necessary cause?" (ibid.)

Hold on there, Heinlein. It is hard to recruit after the Mistake but easy to recruit people who are fouled up?

He hints at a lot more that we would like to know like the precedence of orders dated "1992."

Differences Between Poul Anderson's Two Major Series

The Technic History presents successive future periods whereas the Time Patrol series presents disjointed past periods. Although we understand that a long future history does exist in the Time Patrol timeline, occasional references to that future history provide mere background material for detailed explorations of past, historical and prehistorical, periods. It surprises the reader when just once, later in the series, a Time Patrol agent from the twentieth century does visit a future century. See Hospital On The Moon.

We want to be shown more. The larger a circle, the larger its circumference, i.e., the larger its point of contact with what is outside it. The more we know, the more we realize how little we know. Precisely because Poul Anderson discloses as much as he does, we realize how much is beyond what we are shown. What might we have been told about the Danellians or about even subtler paradoxes than the one revealed in The Shield Of Time? As it is, that novel ends by completely changing our understanding of the Time Patrol.

In the Technic History, how much more is there to be known about the Chereionites and would Aycharaych have returned? This is mooted in The Game Of Empire, two volumes after his presumed death. But Poul Anderson wanted to go on to create some completely different future histories - and it is now also time for me to go elsewhere.

Rescuing Time Patrol Members

This afternoon, some of us from Lancaster will drive over to Throssel Hole Abbey (scroll down) in the North East. This is a breakfast post.

In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, each new timeline is identical with the previous one except for any changes caused either by time travelers or by quantum fluctuations. Thus, if a Time Patrol agent spent a day in the far past, then traveled forward into a now deleted timeline, then, although he has been deleted with that timeline, he still exists for that day in the far past. It follows that some of his fellow agents should be able to travel to that day, prevent him from traveling forward into the deleted timeline and instead transport him forward with them into the current timeline. Thus, the Patrol should be able to re-recruit agents lost in deleted timelines. To the rescued agent, little will have changed. He had expected to return futureward along the Danellian timeline and does this, the only difference being that he is escorted by fellow agents.

Far from contravening its own Prime Directive by doing this, the Patrol would rescue some of its members, maintain its strength and counteract one detrimental effect of a deletion.

Return From Nowhen

In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, would it be possible to enter and return from a "deleted" timeline? In certain circumstances, it might be. We know that there are not only open timecycles but also large, enclosed time shuttles. Suppose that it is known that one such shuttle, carrying many passengers, entered and did not return from the Carthaginian timeline. Everard can travel by timecycle to a time before the departure of that shuttle, enter the shuttle and thus enter the deleted timeline. Further, he could smuggle a timecycle into the shuttle with him. When he wants to leave the deleted timeline, he can mount the timecycle, travel into the past to a time earlier than the point of divergence, then travel forward into the Danellian timeline.

On reflection, this would not work on my theory that all deleted timelines exist in the inaccessible past of a second temporal dimension but then that theory does not account for the sequence of events that is described in "Star of the Sea," in any case. See the discussion in some previous posts. Anderson's variable reality raises permanently unanswerable questions.

Tomorrow and Sunday will be spent mostly out of Lancaster and away from a computer and the day after that is the end of the month.

The Source Of A Disturbance

See Not In Our Yet.

Guion talks about tracing a disturbance back up the threads of the web of world-lines even though the source of the disturbance might not be in our "yet" or reality. Within "our reality," if he traces the disturbance back as far as he can, then the possible objects of his search are:

(i) the arrival of a temporal vehicle that has not departed from any earlier or later moment of the current timeline;

(ii) a quantum fluctuation causing a minor anomaly;

(iii) a randomly changed event in the life of a personal causal nexus.

A personal causal nexus is a person whose world-line intersects with so many others than a minor change in his life might cause major changes for others, the effects multiplying instead of damping out, thus, e.g., the career of a single knight affecting the outcome of the medieval church-state conflict and thus altering the course of all subsequent history. (Stalemate is essential if either theocracy or autocracy is to be avoided. Here again, temporal physics and historical turning points intersect.)

When Guion speaks to Wanda, he knows of (i) and might be learning of (ii) but has not yet encountered (iii). A personal causal nexus initiates a major temporal crisis requiring emergency measures from Everard, Wanda and other surviving Patrol agents.

Kinds Of Time Criminals

Poul Anderson's Time Patrol recognizes only two kinds of antagonists: well-meaning fanatics or self-serving desperadoes. What is lacking is a revolutionary time travel organization with a serious project for a better timeline.

We can all imagine a better twentieth century and identify turning points where the worst evils could have been averted. We do not know what would have happened in an altered timeline but maybe a time travel group would be able to guide - rather than to control - events? Decision-makers would still decision-make. Populations would still interact. But some people believe that there are guardian angels so maybe such "angels" could be time travelers?

I heard that a guy in the USSR was alerted by his instruments that the US had launched a nuclear strike but, not believing it, did not signal for a retaliation. If that is so, then that guy saved all our lives. This is the sort of moment when time travelers might helpfully intervene without interfering elsewhere. If the guy is about to retaliate, then incapacitate him. Otherwise, just observe. There is something like this in Heinlein's " - All You Zombies -," which I will quote when I have access to my copy of the relevant collection.

Imagine a Time Patroller who finds himself in a much improved timeline. He thinks that it is his duty to restore the World Wars, the Holocaust, the Cold War, all the lesser wars and acts of terrorism and global warming. Now imagine a dialogue between him and one of the "guardian angels."

The Time Patrol series has untapped potentials. (Meanwhile, will global warming sabotage a future of either the Polesotechnic League or the Danellians?)

Super Powers And Secret Agents

Dig that cover: the sunset of Empire.

In Poul Anderson's A Circus Of Hells, the Merseians realize that they have captured Dominic Flandry who thwarted them at Starkad.

Between two volumes of Ian Fleming's James Bond series, the Russians realize that they have apprehended Bond who had thwarted them on five previous occasions.

In John Sanders' The Hat Of Authority, the Spanish Inquisition realizes that it has captured Nicholas Pym who had prevented Guido Fawkes from assassinating Oliver Cromwell.

In Anderson's The Shield Of Time, Keith Denison becomes a guest of the Inquisition in the alpha timeline.

This chain of associations has carried us from Anderson's Technic History to his Time Patrol Patrol series via Fleming and Sanders. In the first three cases, a secret agent serves one powerful state in its conflict with another. In the fourth case, Denison's only task is to escape from the alpha timeline. The Time Patrol protects all states in the Danellian timeline - as long as the exist. This suggests a line of thought for the next post.

Two Unique Series

I have tried to convey that Poul Anderson's Technic History is special, even unique, for several reasons, one being its multiple presentations. Although the chronological linearity of Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga, is very welcome, it should not be allowed to obscure the original reading order:

first, we read four volumes containing eight installments about the Polesotechnic League, progressing from adventures of Nicholas van Rijn to the ultimate crisis in the League;

then we read a single novel set centuries later on the planet Avalon in the period of the early Terran Empire;

next, a substantial collection presented from an Avalonian perspective, beginning and ending with human-Ythrian interactions but also including eight more Polesotechnic League installments featuring our old friends, van Rijn, Falkayn, Adzel and the trader team as well as other, one-off, characters but also filling in crucial details and thus completing the history of the League.

For a decade and a half, Anderson's Time Patrol series was complete as a single volume collecting four stories arranged into a beginning, a middle and a culmination.  Then it became complete as two long volumes containing several longer, more complicated narratives whose reading order had to be revised as the series grew. Although Manse Everard remains present throughout, on several occasions he withdraws to the background as other, very different, characters come forward and even narrate their parts of the story. A second bigger culmination dwarfs the concluding story of the original collection. A time travel series with many well realized historical periods and subtle causality paradoxes has to be unique and in addition is enhanced by also reading Anderson's several one-off works on time travel.

Historical Progression

Of the three collections mentioned here:

Trader To The Stars is just three stories about one guy, van Rijn, with no indication that this short trilogy is one small part of a vast future history series;

The Earth Book collects twelve works;

the first describes the human discovery of Ythri;

the second describes Ythrian and human exploration of the planet later colonized by van Rijn's protege, Falkayn;

in the tenth story, set centuries later, an Ythrian foresees the end of van Rijn's way of life (the shadow of God the Hunter is upon it);

the eleventh and twelfth stories, set in a later century, describe the joint human-Ythrian colony founded by Falkayn after the Polesotechnic League has begun its irreversible decline;

The Van Rijn Method is just the first of seven omnibus volumes collecting the entire Technic History in chronological order for the first time.

Quite a progression.

Not Yet

Sometimes a character cannot be killed because we already know that he will be alive later.

"Varagan clutched his belly. Blood squirted between his fingers. He leaned against the wall and shouted.
"Castelar wasted no time finishing him."
-Poul Anderson, "The Year Of The Ransom" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 1991), pp. 399-458, AT 15 April 1610, p. 416.

"Pym cursed his stupidity for not finishing L'Ollonais while he had had the chance."
-John Sanders, The Hat Of Authority (London, 1966), 9, p. 114.

Varagan must survive to be captured by Manse Everard in "Ivory, And Apes, And Peacocks." L'Ollonais is a historical figure and was not killed by a fictional character. (His name is spelled differently on Wikipedia.)

Somewhere among the elaborate circular causality paradoxes of Tim Powers' The Anubis Gates, a character tells his younger self (I think) effectively that he can't kill him because he didn't!

Three Ways Into The Technic History; Three Layers Of Futurity

There are three great ways into Poul Anderson's Technic History.

Trader To The Stars, which was the first Technic History collection, begins as someone unidentified except as "Le Matelot" writes:

"'The world's great age begins anew...'
"As it has before, and will again."
-Poul Anderson, Trader To The Stars (Panther Books Ltd, Frogmore, St Albans, 1975), p. 7.

The Earth Book Of Stormgate, which "spans, illuminates and completes the magnificent future history of the Polesotechnic League," begins:

"To those who read, good flight.
"It is Hloch of the Stormgate Choth who writes, on the peak of Mount Anrovil in the Weathermother."
-Poul Anderson, The Earth Book Of Stormgate (New York, 1979), p. 1.

The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), which is Volume I of The Technic Civilization Saga, compiled by Hank Davis, begins with Davis' infectiously enthusiastic introduction:

"PLANETS AND PROFITS:
"INTRODUCING NICHOLAS VAN RIJN AND THE POLESOTECHNIC LEAGUE...

"...and also introducing one of the grandest sagas in science fiction: the Technic Civilization series." (p. ix)

Even better, Davis' compilation reproduces Hloch's introduction on p. 75 and Le Matelot's on p. 555 so everything is preserved and nothing is lost.

The Mongol Paradox

NOTE: See the combox for a correction to this post.

We can appreciate the Time Patrol series but still understand the paradoxes differently. What happens in "The Only Game In Town"?

Denison sees Mongols in North America in 1280 A.D. and returns to the twentieth century. I think that, if those Mongols had been going to conquer North America, then Denison would have arrived in the twentieth century of a timeline in which the Mongols had conquered North America. Instead, he arrives in his familiar New York. This means that, in this timeline, someone or something prevented a Mongol conquest. Denison will learn that that someone was himself and Everard. It follows, I think, that, if Everard and he had not set off on their mission to thwart the Mongols, then the first unwelcome consequence would have been the arrival in the twentieth century of the Everard and Denison who had thwarted the Mongols. By failing to embark on the mission, they would unwittingly have duplicated themselves.

Another conceivable consequence would be that...

Leave it there for the moment. I think that:

Everard and Denison are in a timeline where the Mongol conquest was prevented;

but they are still obliged to travel to 1280 to prevent the conquest;

but, if they do not travel to 1280 for this purpose, it must remain the case that they are in a timeline where the conquest was prevented;

therefore, it was prevented by an Everard and a Denison who remembered having traveled then for that purpose and who would, as they saw it, "return" home.  

The Dark Side Of The Time Patrol?

Guion says that Time Patrol agents who had no emotions about human beings encountered on missions would be defective and either worthless or dangerous.

I disagree. In a milieu dominated by Inquisitors or Nazis, the Danellians would be most effectively served by - Inquisitors or Nazis, prepared, if necessary, to ensure that all the torture and murder happened on schedule. Is there a Dark Patrol concealed not only from the readers but also from morally constrained agents like Everard?

This would be a premise in a themed anthology about the Time Patrol. One way to write such stories is to turn assumptions on their heads. James Blish's "Service" which guards a foreknown future is an Event Police, not an Assassins' Guild. But maybe that exists as well.

History And Physics

Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series seamlessly blends historical periods and turning points with spatiotemporal physics and quantum mechanics. Because of other current reading, I am thinking of the English Civil War as a historical turning point. Of course, the Time Patrol series does not address this particular period, although it is in Anderson's alternative history novel, A Midsummer Tempest, but the point is that Time Patrol thinking is applicable to any historical events. Some speculate about Sarajevo... If the series had been extended indefinitely, then it would undoubtedly have covered almost every era.

Thus, Anderson initiates an endless discourse with, at one end of the agenda, ancient, medieval and modern historical battlefields and, at the other end, Guion's quest for the hypermatrix of the continuum. Although Everard does not understand the physics, he fully accepts that the continuum is especially vulnerable around moments like Palestine 69-70 A.D. and that reality is unstable as far away as barbarian Germany.

Soldiers in the seventeenth century have no idea that, although they remember a particular outcome for a battle, their counterparts in Reality B remember it differently. That their lives from birth to death can be metamorphosed by quantum fluctuations is beyond their comprehension. How much is beyond ours? At the Time Patrol Academy, Everard is told that his class is being given the truth - or as much of it as they can take.

Anticipating Reality B

Andrea tells me that physicists discuss not "timeline 1" and "timeline 2" but "reality A" and "reality B." I do not think that the terminology matters but I accepted his and the physicists' terminology for the sake of uniformity.

In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series:

a time traveler can travel from the present of reality A to the past of reality B, then forward into the present of reality B;

the transition from reality A to reality B can be caused either by a time traveler or by a quantum fluctuation.

Can someone in reality A anticipate and prepare for a transition to reality B? In Anderson's The Shield Of Time, Guion of the Time Patrol tries to do this by questioning people like Manse Everard and Wanda Tamberly who tend to be involved in unusual chronokinetic events. Guion wants to find a clue to the hypermatrix of the continuum by learning how their experiences felt to them. He suspects a larger meaning than the Exaltationists. The possibility of a quantum fluctuation in space-time-energy has not yet been realized. Whether Guion's efforts towards comprehension are successful might have been the subject of a further Time Patrol volume.

In 950 B.C.

Poul Anderson's Time Patrol story, "Ivory, And Apes, And Peacocks," begins and ends in 950 B.C. Everard has come from the twentieth century but, during the course of the story, time travels only to a few decades before 950 B.C. and returns. Thus, there is no contemporary aspect to the story but as ever there is some comment. The two Patrol agents based in Tyre are Israelis. Their occasional help to local people:

"'...makes up, somehow, a little bit, for...for what our countrymen will do hereabouts, far uptime.'"
-Poul Anderson, "Ivory, And Apes, And Peacocks" IN Anderson, Time Patrolman (New York, 1983), p. 25.

The time criminals' blackmail letter requests that sensitive information be broadcast:

"'...in digital form from Palo Alto, California, United States of America, throughout the 24 hours of Friday 13 June 1980.'"
-op. cit., pp. 36-37.

"Natives" would not detect it and at the same time local electronic activity would prevent the Patrol from tracking the receiver. Although Everard has come from a date later than 1980, he might nevertheless travel futureward into a timeline altered by Exaltationists who had carried out their threat to destroy Tyre.

The Day After He Left

"Maybe returning to New York on the day after he left it had been a mistake."
-Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), PART ONE, 1987 A. D., p. 3.

This opening sentence (almost) immediately establishes that the viewpoint character has traveled through time. In an ordinary journey, you can return to your starting point on the following day only by spending a single night elsewhere. On the following page, we learn that Everard had:

"...enjoyed two easy weeks in Hiram's Tyre, taking care of leftover details after his mission was done. As for Bronwen, he'd provided for her..."
-op. cit., p. 4.

This passage not only confirms that he has time traveled but also reveals that The Shield Of Time is a direct sequel to "Ivory, And Apes, And Peacocks," which therefore should be the concluding story in the preceding volume, Time Patrol. (In my copy of The Shield..., the list of "Tor books by Poul Anderson" informs us that Tales of the Time Patrol is "forthcoming," so the order of the stories could have been rectified then.)

P. 3 gives us a description of a beautiful springtime in New York:

dusk;
air cleared by rain;
"...a ghost of blossoms and green..." drifting through open windows;
street lights and noises "...softened, turned riverlike."

In The Beginnings: Complicated Publishing Histories

The first published volume of Poul Anderson's main future history series, the History of Technic Civilization, was Trader To The Stars, three stories about Nicholas van Rijn of the Polesotechnic League, beginning with "Hiding Place."

The Earth Book Of Stormgate, which "spans, illuminates and completes" the Polesotechnic League period of the Technic History, begins with "Wings of Victory," about first contact with Ythri.

The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume I, The Van Rijn Method, compiled by Hank Davis, begins with "The Saturn Game," which is chronologically the earliest Technic History story.

However, the first Nicholas van Rijn story is "Margin of Profit" which:

is quoted at the beginning of the second story in Trader To The Stars, "Territory";

had to be rewritten to eliminate discrepancies with the Technic History before it could be collected;

is collected both in The Earth Book Of Stormgate (twelve stories) and in The Van Rijn Method (eleven stories), these two collections overlapping by seven stories, with "Hiding Place" republished right at the end of The Van Rijn Method.

Poul Anderson's Time Patrol collection has grown and been re-entitled:

Guardians Of Time (4 stories);
The Guardians Of Time (5);
Annals Of The Time Patrol (7);
The Time Patrol (9);
Time Patrol (10).

The companion volume of the collection is the long novel, The Shield Of Time. I have argued previously on this blog that the tenth story in Time Patrol should be published at the end of The Shield Of Time and that some changes need to be made to the order of the remaining nine stories.

Matelot

See Le Matelot. (Scroll down.)

See Matelot.

L'Ollonais explains to Pym that each buccaneer has a chosen comrade and lifelong friend called a matelot and that, if the buccaneer is killed in an attack, then the matelot gets his share of the plunder.
-John Sanders, The Hat Of Authority (London, 1966), 6, "Matelot's End," p. 72.

If we read Poul Anderson's Technic History in the original order, beginning with Trader To The Stars, then the first thing that we read is Le Matelot quoting Shelley.

Living In Entropic Time

How does Poul Anderson's "Brave To Be A King" inform us that it is a time travel story, assuming for the sake of argument that we are reading it for the first time and that it is not in an obvious time travel collection (which it in fact is)?

The opening phrase:

"On an evening in mid-twentieth century New York..."
-Poul Anderson, "Brave To Be A King" IN Anderson, The Guardians Of Time (New York, 1981), pp. 65-124 AT 1, p. 65 -

- makes us aware of time and would usually be an odd way to start a story just as we do not usually begin by specifying which planet someone is on.

The name "Manse Everard" alerts us if we have already read "Time Patrol." Everard wants to read "...the lost narratives of Dr. Watson." (ibid.) One of these narratives had played a pivotal role in "Time Patrol." Are we to understand that Everard has access to the untold cases?

When he realizes that it is Cynthia Denison that has rung his doorbell:

"...all at once, it was as if he were aboard some early spaceship which had just entered free fall; he stood weightless and helpless in a blaze of stars." (ibid.)

Does this comparison imply knowledge of later spaceships that do not enter free fall?

Spears and a helmet from the Achaean Bronze Age hang above Everard's bar. We either know or will soon realize that these objects have been brought directly from that Age.

On p. 66, he becomes awkward, forgetting his Time Patrol training. Now, if we did not already, we understand that he is a time traveler.

When they mention that it has only been a few months since she married Keith Denison, Cynthia comments:

"'Entropic time. Regular, untampered-with, twenty-four-hours-to-the-day time... Not much more than that for me. I've been in now almost continuously since my, my wedding.'" (p. 66)

She asks Everard how many years he has lived in how many epochs since he was Keith's best man.

The bitter reference to "'Entropic time...'", the curious phrase, "'I've been in now...'" and the question about years and epochs give some idea of how Time Patrollers must feel with their knowledge of time travel. The marriage was eight and a half months ago for Cynthia but two or three years for Everard.

New York, 1960

The entire action of Poul Anderson's "Delenda Est" occurs either in the past:

the lodge in the Pleistocene Pyrenees;
an interval about the time of Christ;
the Academy in the Oligocene Period;
the Second Punic War -

- or in an alternative 1960.

Thus, there is no "contemporary" aspect to the story. However, yet again, comment is made on the approximate period when the story was written. Two Unattached agents, Everard and Van Sarawak, are at the lodge. Everard has shot a mammoth, skied, mountain-climbed and watched Cro-Magnons dance. Bored of the outdoor life, both men want bright lights and music in the company of women who do not know about time travel. Everard says that Augustan Rome is overrated. How would someone who had never been there-then cope? That part would be easy. They would be able to get hypnotic education in language and customs at the lodge. Would it really be that easy to holiday in another place and time? In any case, if they are not to go then, then what other options are there?

One possibility is:

"'...'way upstairs...'"
-Poul Anderson, "Delenda Est" IN Anderson, The Guardians Of Time (New York, 1981), pp. 187-243 AT 1, p. 189.

That means in the very far future. During his training at the Academy, Everard had been told:

"'Wait till you've been to the decadent stage of the Third Matriarchy! You don't know what fun is.'"
-Poul Anderson, "Time Patrol" IN The Guardians Of Time, pp. 9-63 AT 1, p. 23.

How many Matriarchies are there? There is a Terrestrial Matriarchy in James Blish's "This Earth of Hours" but that is in another timeline. The Time Patrol story, "Gibraltar Falls," tells us that the First Matriarchy is two thousand years in our future.

The other possibility is:

"'Unless we want to go 'way upstairs, the most glorious decadence available is right in my own milieu. New York, say....If you know the right phone numbers, and I do.'" (p. 189)

So there you are then: New York, 1960 - as long as you know the right phone numbers.

Anachronisms

The first anachronism in Poul Anderson's "The Only Game In Town" is John Sandoval's appearance. Everard thinks that Sandoval's face looks as if it should be wearing warpaint, not looking out of a window in mid-twentieth century Manhattan. Sandoval has told Everard that the Chinese discovered America. This could be just a new historical finding. However, Sandoval is standing on a polar bear rug that Bjarni Herjulfsson, the Norse discoverer of America, gave to Everard so time travel is involved. We know this already but we are checking to see how and when the time travel aspect is first made explicit in this story which was originally published in a magazine.

"Towers were sharp against a clear sky; the noise of traffic was muted by height."
-Poul Anderson, "The Only Game In Town" IN Anderson, The Guardians Of Time (New York, 1981), pp. 141-185 AT 1, p. 141.

Thus, the twentieth century scenery is allowed to impinge before the conversation continues. Sandoval has seen Mongols with horses in North America in 1280 A.D. It happened centuries ago but it is a situation that the Time Patrol must address now.

Poul Anderson's Two Main Bodies Of Work

I think that there is no doubt that Poul Anderson's two main bodies of work are the Time Patrol series, complete in one omnibus collection and one long, tripartite novel, and the History of Technic Civilization, complete in seven omnibus collections. The difference is quantitative but not qualitative.

Both series are reflections on historical processes and on the passage of time. They are complementary to the extent that they address the past and a future, respectively, although not in a single timeline. A multi-dimensional framework would be able to incorporate the events of both series. This is not necessary for either narrative although it is indicated elsewhere.

Both series are conservative. The Time Patrol conserves the course of history that leads to the post- and super-human Danellians. In the Technic History, Nicholas van Rijn's Solar Spice & Liquors Company needs stable governments to facilitate trade. Van Rijn is not above overthrowing an unhelpful government if this can be done with a minimum of violence and of subsequent recriminations. Maybe a demoted patriarch can become a trustworthy company factor? Maybe former palace guards can patrol trade routes? Maybe suspicious natives can be shown that the newcomers are not despicable weaklings, profane profiteers or covert conquerors? Everybody happy? Not in real life - and not always in the Technic History, either.

Van Rijn opposes the cartelization of the Polesotechnic League. The League began by promoting liberty and can only change for the worse as successful companies grow into monopolies that merge with the state. Van Rijn's protege, David Falkayn, is an aristocrat who opposes revolutionary change on his home planet, Hermes, and who also addresses increasing interstellar economic inequities but eventually leaves human space to found a free society elsewhere.

Later, Dominic Flandry preserves legitimate rule in the Empire, then just the Empire, for as long as possible. After the Empire, Roan Tom and others do not rejoice in chaos but rebuild interstellar trade and alliances. Later again, humanity, having spread through several spiral arms of the galaxy, enters a new age of diversity and prosperity. I am not selling this history, just telling it like it is. The summary demonstrates that the narrative is a genuine history covering several successive periods.

There is a Time Patrol Timeline here.

Four imaginative Andersonian futures:

humanity evolves into the Danellians who found the Time Patrol which ensures the evolution of the Danellians;

League, Empire and later civilizations;

a relativistic spaceship survives into the next universe;

a time machine traverses circular time.

Some Historical Connections

In Poul Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest, Oliver Cromwell surrenders to Rupert of the Rhine and is exiled by Charles I.

In John Sanders' Nicholas Pym series, Pym:

abducts Charles I;
prevents assassinations of Cromwell and Charles II;
refers to Rupert as the arch-enemy;
meets young Henry Morgan;
fights the pirate, Francois L'Ollonais, who is suspected of involvement in the Sealed Knot.

In Ian Fleming's Live And Let Die:

James Bond investigates when SMERSH smuggles Morgan's treasure;

M, briefing Bond, refers to other pirates, including L'Ollonais, and displays coins, including a Rose Noble.

In Dornford Yates' first two Chandos Books, the villain is called "Rose" Noble.

My excuse for this post is that it is late at night and I can't sleep but I will now resort to rereading Stieg Larsson.

(The Sealed Knot and SMERSH were real although Fleming's account is fictionalized.)

Contemporary And Cosmic In Amsterdam

Manse Everard contrasts the evanescence, the momentary warmth, light and savor, of the Ambrosia restaurant in Amsterdam with the surrounding "unbounded darkness."

This recalls a much earlier work on time travel:

"Man's works were so horribly impermanent; he thought with a sadness of the cites and civilizations he had seen rise and spend their little hour and sink back into the night and chaos of time." (Chapter 3, p. 238)
-copied from here.

However, this vaster cosmic perspective does not prevent Anderson from describing Amsterdam in substantial terms as if it were the setting of a contemporary novel none of whose characters ever considered the unbounded darkness or the night and chaos of time.

We Andersonians contemplate both perspectives.

The Rules Of Fiction

Poul Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest is, from p. 1, is an alternative history novel so it is acceptable that the execution of Charles I and the Interregnum are prevented but what do the rules of fiction allow? Suppose someone were to write a series of ten novels set in England in the 1650s, then, in Volume XI, set in 1660, were to describe the continuance of the Commonwealth without any Restoration of the Monarchy? Readers would rightly object that they thought that they had been reading historical fiction, not alternative history fiction.

Similarly, it is acceptable that a spaceship arrives on Earth in 1345 at the beginning of Anderson's The High Crusade but such an arrival would be grotesquely unacceptable in Volume XI of our hypothetical series set in the 1650s and 1660.

Genres can interact but must do so discretely, respecting the integrity of each internally coherent narrative. We appreciate Nicholas van Rijn's surprise guest appearance in the Old Phoenix but he rightly makes no mention of such a fantasy realm back in the hard sf setting of his own series.

"The Upheavals Of That Generation"

We quoted Poul Anderson's "Gibraltar Falls" concerning Multilocation. It is also relevant to the interface between "contemporary" and "cosmic" but in a different way. The entire story is set five and a half million years before Tom Nomura's birth in 1947 so there is absolutely nothing contemporary about it.

However, from that Time Patrol perspective of millions of years, comment is made on the period in which the story was written:

"That Everard had been recruited in New York, 1954 A.D., and Nomura in San Francisco, 1972, ought to make scant difference. The upheavals of that generation were bubble pops against what had happened before and what would happen after."
-Poul Anderson, "Gibraltar Falls" IN Anderson, The Guardians Of Time (New York, 1981), pp. 125-140 AT p. 126.

("Gibraltar Falls" is copyright, 1975.)

No doubt. They were upheavals, nevertheless. I was in a definite "generation gap" with my parents but not with my daughter or granddaughter.

However, Nomura is twenty-five and has only just completed his training whereas Everard has traveled through innumerable periods while benefiting from longevity treatment. Nomura suspects that they are foreigners to each other. To compound the anachronisms, they are in the company of a woman born two millennia later than either of them...

How does the Patrol hang together?

The Fringe Of A Galaxy

See The Narrator And The Spiral Arm.

I seem to have missed one of these passages. Flandry reflects:

"Because how can we remain forever the masters, even of our insignificant spatter of stars, on the fringe of a galaxy so big we'll never know a decent fraction of it? Probably never more than this sliver of one spiral arm that we've already seen. Why, better than half the suns, just in the micro-bubble of space we claim, have not been visited once!
"Our ancestors explored further than we in these years remember."
-Poul Anderson, The Rebel Worlds IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 367-520 AT CHAPTER TWO, p. 381.

Similarly, characters in the later Star Trek series remember the early explorers of the Original Series. Van Rijn's trade pioneer crews focused on those planetary systems that had been passed by rather than on extending the outer frontiers of known space.

Flandry is wrong in one respect. By the time of the Commonalty, long after the Terran Empire, when even Anglic has become a dead language, human civilizations have spread through several spiral arms.

Two Commanders And One Colonel-At-Sea

James Bond is a Royal Navy Commander although he never has a command.

Lieutenant Commander Dominic Flandry is given a brevet commission as the full commander of the escort destroyer, Asieneuve, which he loses on his first mission.

Nicholas Pym is appointed:

"...to the office and commission of Colonel-at-Sea, and to the command of the fourth-rate ship, Chalgrove, of thirty-eight guns..."
-John Sanders, The Hat Of Authority (London, 1966), 1, p. 16 -

- which, as far as I remember after fifty-four years, he loses on his first mission.

We vicariously enjoy these characters' harrowing experiences at sea or in space. Pym, Bond and Flandry represent past, present (at the time of writing) and future:
the English Protectorate, the Cold War (and its immediate aftermath) and the twilight of the Terran Empire - great events in interesting times.

Individual And Collective Continuing Villains In The Works Of Five Authors

See the blog search result for Villains. (Scroll down.)

(i) Ian Fleming.
(ii) Poul Anderson.
(iii) SM Stirling.
(iv) Stieg Larsson.
(v) John Sanders.

(i) Ian Fleming
Fleming presents a new individual villain in each installment and also excels at collective villains. (See More Villains, What To Look Out For and Clandestine Lunarians And Others.) Apart from SMERSH and SPECTRE, several criminal organizations are mentioned or appear more than once, e.g., the Mafia is represented in:

Goldfinger's Hoods' Congress;
Blofeld's SPECTRE;
The Man With The Golden Gun's Group.

(ii) Poul Anderson
Main individual villains:

Aycharaych in the Dominic Flandry series;
Merau Varagan in the Time Patrol series.

Main collective villains:

the Merseians in the Dominic Flandry series;
Neldorians and Exaltationists in the Time Patrol series (but there is a threat even greater than them).

(iii) SM Stirling
Stirling imagines purer evil than anyone else.

An individual villain: the demon-worshiping cannibal, Count Ignatieff.
An evil slave-owning nation: the Draka.
An evil species: the Shadowspawn, the originals of demons and vampires.

(iv) Stieg Larsson
Individual villain: Zala.
Collective villain: the Section, covering up for Zala.

(v) John Sanders
An individual villain: Guido Fawkes, son of Guy Fawkes.
Collective villain: the Sealed Knot.

Since Poul Anderson wrote both historical fiction and science fictional secret service fiction, I recommend Anderson fan's to read John Sanders' long out of print historical secret service series if they can find it. You will certainly appreciate how Sanders boosts the Sealed Knot as a collective villain:

"'...that Cavalier terrorist organization with which I think you are familiar.'
"Pym's smile froze. 'Mr. S.K.,' he breathed. 'I might have guessed the Sealed Knot would be involved in this.'"
-John Sanders, The Hat Of Authority (London, 1966), 2, p. 23.

"'Every assassination attempt upon the Protector, every malicious rumour, every gathering together of traitors, malcontents and rogues of every sort, can be traced directly to the organization of the Sealed Knot. To date, thank God in His mercy, we have foiled them all.'"
-ibid.

The man conversing with Pym is his superior, John Thurloe. According to Thurloe's Wikipedia article, his intelligence service "...broke the Sealed Knot." There is now a historical reenactment society of that name.

Thurloe was a real person. Also Fleming's Head of SMERSH, G., answered to Serov, a real person.

And that is plenty about villains for the time being.

Not Quite Contemporary

In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol story, "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth," published in 1983, when Carl Farness joins the Time Patrol, he and his wife move from 1980 to the 1930s. Thus, a passage set in 1935 is not exactly "contemporary." Nevertheless, Anderson again describes an almost familiar scene before presenting his longer historical perspective:

it is a crisp and brilliant autumn day in New York;
masonry and glass gleam high;
a few clouds scud on the breeze in a blue sky;
cars are few;
there is the aroma of roast chestnuts;
there are glamorous shops and diverse people.

(Three senses.)

Then Carl, who has just come from 372, thinks:

"...those Goths of mine were getting off lightly compared to, say, millions of European Jews and Gypsies, less than ten years futureward, or millions of Russians at this very moment."
-Poul Anderson, "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" IN Anderson, Time Patrolman (New York, 1983), pp. 117-254 AT 1935, p. 129.

He is burdened with the knowledge of what is happening elsewhere now and also of what will happen a decade hence and later - and the Patrol must preserve all of it, even including what has already happened, as Carl will learn to his cost.

The Contemporary In The Cosmic IV

This time, "contemporary" = 1990.

"Light streamed through the Golden Gate. From their suite [Manse Everard and Wanda Tamberly] saw cable cars go clanging down toward the waterfront, islands and the farther shore rising steep from a silver-blue bay, sails like wings of some wandering flock."
-Poul Anderson, "Death And The Knight" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2006), pp. 737-765 AT SAN FRANCISCO, THURSDAY, 8 MARCH 1990, p. 746.

But all is not as it seems. Everard must travel to France in October 1307 just before the suppression of the Knights Templar, a historically pivotal event. Anderson is restrained in his treatment of the Templars. They revere Abraham's jawbone and are not a front for the Patrol or for any esoteric magical or mystical tradition. Nevertheless, Anderson describes contemporary San Francisco, the setting of his three detective novels, before plunging Everard into yet another dangerous temporal mission, unfortunately his last to be written by Anderson. In Paris in 1307:

"'Let's go,' Everard said, and led them away." (p. 765)

He returns to his holiday with Wanda in 1990 but when after that?

The Contemporary In The Cosmic III

In Operation Luna, Poul Anderson describes the York that we know (see York Minster) even though this, otherwise indistinguishable, York is on an alternative Earth where:

magic works;

air travel is by broomsticks or flying carpets;

the two American visitors are a werewolf and a witch whose daughter will later meet Prince Rupert of the Rhine and Holger Danske while traveling between universes;

the Devil/the Adversary is a real and active being;

Hell is a low entropy universe with distorted space-time;

there is contact with Heaven and a route to Yggdrasil;

evil supernatural beings have emigrated to the Moon;

an enchanted sword speaks;

etc.

Can our York coexist with all that? Many who have lived there have believed in at least some of these things.

The Contemporary In The Cosmic II

See The Contemporary In The Cosmic.

Later, "contemporary" means 1986 when, after an objective gap of thirty four years, Time Patrol agent Manse Everard revisits Amsterdam where he sees:

scruffy youth from the Dam to the Central Station;
cafes and bars on alleys off the Damrak;
discrete sleaze shops;
extraordinary bookstores;
centuries-old houses along the canal;
a place that serves eel for lunch;
the Stedelijke Museum;
the Rijks;
the Museumplein;
the Singelgracht;
Vondelpark;
gleaming water;
sunlight on leaves and grass;
a canoeist, an elderly couple and a band of cyclists.

That is the contemporary description but there are two intrusions of a deeper perspective:

first, the gap has been longer for Everard because, since 1952, he has joined the Patrol and traveled through the ages, for example to the periods of Elizabeth I and Cyrus the Great;

secondly, he knows that all the past, present and future life of Amsterdam is like diffraction rings on unstable space-time.

Letters Of Marque

"Oliver, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, and the Dominions thereto belonging, to our right trusty and well-beloved Colonel Nicholas Pym. Reposing trust and confidence in the ability, circumspection and fidelity of you, Colonel Nicholas Pym, we have made, constituted and appointed, and by these presents do make, constitute and appoint you, the said Colonel Nicholas Pym, to the office and commission of Colonel-at-Sea...

"These presents shall also serve as the letters of marque needed for your employment as a privateer..."
-John Sanders, The Hat Of Authority (London, 1966), 1, pp. 16-17.

Readers of both Poul Anderson's The Star Fox and of SM Stirling's On The Oceans Of Eternity are familiar with letters of marque and therefore also with privateers. See here.

"Even Rupert, the arch-enemy, had won greater fame at sea than he had on land."
-op. cit, p. 17.

Readers of Poul Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest are familiar with Prince Rupert of the Rhine, who was also a privateer.

Nowadays I value other authors insofar as they are able to contribute to blog comparisons with Poul Anderson. Sanders meets the mark.

Colonel-at-Sea?

Contemporary And Beyond

See The Contemporary In The Cosmic.

Is ten years previously still close enough to the time of writing to count as "contemporary"? It is hardly "historical." However, a mere decade can transport us into a different period and World War II is a period unto itself:

"London, 1944. The early winter night had fallen, and a thin cold wind blew down streets which were gulfs of darkness. Somewhere came the crump of an explosion, and a fire was burning, great red banners flapping above the roofs."
-6, p. 54. (For full reference, see the above link.)

Definitely not New York, 1954.

To introduce Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, this opening story also presents three other, very different, periods:

"...the Oligocene period, a warm age of forests and grasslands when man's ratty ancestors scuttled away from the tread of giant mammals."
-2, pp. 13-14.

Victorian London. See In The Past.

Addleton Barrow, 464 A.D.:

"There was a full moon. Under it, the land lay big and lonely, with a darkness of forest blocking out the horizon. Somewhere a wolf howled."
-5, p. 39.

The best time travel writing anywhere, I think.

The Contemporary In The Cosmic

New York at the time of writing in 1954:

"He looked out of his window. Lights flamed against a hectic sky; the streets crawled with automobiles and a hurrying, faceless crowd; he could not see the towers of Manhattan from here, but he knew they reared arrogant toward the clouds."
-Poul Anderson, "Time Patrol" IN Anderson, The Guardians Of Time (New York, 1981), pp. 9-63 AT 3, p. 26.

Anderson conveys dynamism:

lights flame;
the sky is hectic;
streets are full of autombiles;
the crowd hurries;
towers rear arrogantly;
people are on the move;
a civilization is going somewhere.

But, so far, it is what is happening at the time of writing. Then comes the perspective, not only past but also future:

"And it was all one swirl on a river that swept from the peaceful prehuman landscape where he had been to the unimaginable Danellian future."
-ibid.

So some reflection is appropriate:

"How many billions and trillions of human creatures lived, laughed, wept, worked, hoped, and died in its currents!"
-ibid.

How many? Also: how many! That last sentence is not a question because it ends with an exclamation mark.

Rupert And Pym

Poul Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest has a Cavalier hero whereas John Sanders' Nicholas Pym series has a Roundhead hero so let's have a trilogy:

Vol I, Cavalier hero defeats his Roundhead enemies;
II, Roundhead hero defeats his Cavalier enemies;
III, the two heroes go head to head -

or even a Tetralogy:

IV, what happens to everyone after the Restoration -

or, indeed, the story continues:

V, there are royalists and republicans in later history down to today.

Pursuing the idea further: Vols I and II written by different authors and III a collaboration.

Murder In Black Letter, Chapter 20

Murder In Black Letter, 20.

This concluding chapter is an extended action sequence which for me is an anticlimax. Kintyre goes to where the villain might be and sees a parked car which is unlocked. As in Anderson's Murder Bound, the owner's name is in registration information on the steering column. Thus, Kintyre confirms that the villain is nearby and also is able to sabotage his car. The rest is a fight on a dark beach. There is one further Machiavelli quotation but this one is from his private correspondence. Anderson's following volume, Murder Bound, does not tell us what becomes of Kintyre and Corrine.

We artificially differentiate the contemporary from the cosmic although, of course, the former is merely a minute part of the latter. Inhabitants of extra-solar planets must also have their domestic affairs. We will maybe follow up these posts on the Trygve Yamamura novels by quoting some descriptions of contemporary scenes in Anderson's sf and fantasy novels where the author makes the cosmic setting explicit.

Murder In Black Letter, Chapter 19

Murder In Black Letter, 19.

"Games theory," murmured the telephone. "You plan your strategy on the basis of the strategy your opponent would plan on the basis of the information you believe him to have.

Games theory is a link to some of Poul Anderson's futuristic sf. See here. Although this is rarely even mentioned in contemporary fiction, some sort of future history lies ahead of Yamamura's period and it could be one of the futures described in another work or series by Anderson.

There is another quote from Machiavelli:

"'One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves,'" recited Kintyre in Machiavelli's Italian. "'Those that wish to be only lions do not understand this.'"

- and I skipped past one about women in an intervening chapter. We have now reached the end of the penultimate chapter of this novel. It remains for the hero to rescue the heroine and apprehend the villain.

Murder In Black Letter, Chapter 18

Murder In Black Letter, 18.

you can try that on the switchboard girl for recognitionor. Does the phone office keep records of such things?

Should this passage read:

"'...you can try that on the switchboard girl for recognition or does the phone office keep records of such things?'"?

"This time he had two metal legs and he paid.

Metal legs?

This is that chapter in a detective novel where past events are summarized and explained and it is recognized that incidental incidents were in fact clues, e.g.:

when I told him Margery's place had already been raided, it was a shock

Yes, that character did respond with surprise or shock at that point in the conversation in a previous chapter. That obviously meant something although I had no idea what.

This chapter ends as follows, with Yamamura's pov:

Kintyre and Yamamura speak by phone;
Kintyre breaks off in mid-sentence;
his voice trails off;
his receiver crashes down;
he rings back to say that he has just rung someone who should have been home but there was no answer....

Another moment of realization and another possible murder...

I am summarizing the structure rather than the content of a detective novel.