Friday, 9 October 2020

Contrasting Timelines

The Time Traveler finds the Morlocks and Eloi in AD 802,701 whereas Poul Anderson's Martin Saunders visits the hold of Brontothor in a mere AD 50,000.

Anderson's Danellians are a million years hence whereas Saunders encounters the "gods" in their city of wild geometry, titanic looming structures, incredible forces and great devastating energies four million years after his visit to Brontothor!

These timescales are very different although we loosely think of them all as just the far future. Someone might construct an interesting diagram of comparative timelines. (I won't.)

Meanwhile, I do not know what today will hold although the first order of business is breakfast.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

One thing that distinguishes Anderson's early stories from those of his middle and late phases was his fondness for sometimes florid and purple language in those early works. A phenomenon we see MUCH less of in later years. I think florid rhetoric is often characteristic of beginning writer, as they search to find the right style that comes most naturally to them.

And "Flight to Forever" is very much an early Anderson story.

Ad astra! Sean