Increasing Complexity And Sophistication In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol Series

The complete collection of Time Patrol stories grew from Guardians of Time with four stories to The Guardians Of Time with five to Annals Of The Time Patrol with seven. (There was an intermediate period when there were two volumes, The Guardians Of Time and Time Patrolman, but these two were combined as Annals...) Then an eighth story, The Year Of The Ransom, was published as a single volume. These eight stories could be read as a linear sequence on the assumption that the central character, Manse Everard, experienced the events of the stories in the order that the narratives were presented to us. The next step towards a complete series not only added two further works but also complicated Everard's personal chronology. Now the two volumes comprised:

The Shield Of Time, a new long novel;

The Time Patrol, an omnibus collection of the eight previously published works plus a new short novel, "Star of the Sea."

Everard's more complicated chronology:

he interviews Carl Farness twice in New York in 1980 ("The Sorrow of Odin the Goth");

he works with Janne Floris in Amsterdam in 1986 ("Star of the Sea") and reveals that the events of "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" are in his personal past;

he meets Wanda Tamberly in October 1986 ("The Year of the Ransom");

Everard and Wanda are in San Francisco in May 1987 ("The Year of the Ransom" and The Shield Of Time, PART TWO);

from Phoenicia ("Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks" and The Shield Of Time, PART TWO), Everard returns to spring, 1987 (The Shield Of Time, PART ONE);

Shalten briefs Everard in 1987 (The Shield Of Time, PART TWO);

Wanda works in the Galapagos in September 1987 ("The Year Of The Ransom");

Everard and Wanda go out for dinner in San Francisco in 1988 (The Shield Of Time, PART TWO) before she trains at the Time Patrol Academy in 31,275,389 BC (The Shield Of Time, PART THREE).

Thus:

the order of the two stories in Time Patrolman, "Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks" and "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth," is reversed;

two other stories, "Star of the Sea" and "The Year of the Ransom," are inserted between them;

early chapters of The Shield Of Time hook this novel onto the events of "The Year..." and "Ivory..."