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.