Monday 21 September 2020

Main And Supporting Characters

In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, there is an unwritten rule that each story features Manse Everard and one other one-off character, then it becomes more complicated.

Guardians Of Time 
"Time Patrol," Everard and Charlie Whitcomb
"Brave To Be A King," Everard and Keith Denison
"The Only Game In Town," Everard and John Sandoval
"Delenda Est," Everard and Piet Van Sarawak

The Guardians Of Time (one more story)
"Gibraltar Falls," Tom Nomura and Everard

Time Patrolman
"Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks," Everard against Merau Varagan
"The Sorrow of Odin the Goth," Carl Farness and Everard
 
The Day Of The Ransom
Wanda Tamberly and Everard, also Varagan and Raor
 
The Time Patrol (one new story)
"Star of the Sea," Everard and Janne Floris
 
Time Patrol (one more story)
"Death and the Knight," Everard, Wanda and Hugh Marlow
 
The Shield Of Time 
Everard, Wanda, Denison, Varagan and Raor
 
Also, there are more supporting characters in The Shield Of Time.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

This "unwritten rule" probably made sense if the only Time Patrol stories Anderson had ever written had remained the four stories collected in THE GUARDIANS OF TIME. But once it had become plain the Patrol were a fairly lengthy series, it made sense to have more continuing characters besides Everard (as we see starting in :in Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks." And of course THE SHIELD OF TIME was the most complex of the Patrol stories.

Ad astra! Sean