(In this post, I am trying to focus on HG Wells and Poul Anderson but I have just remembered an excellent example from Neil Gaiman. I told my friend, Kevin, that some of Gaiman's characters were stranded in the Inn of the Worlds' End by a reality storm. Kevin remarked that a reality storm sounded like something out of Star Trek. I was able to tell him that one of the characters remarked that that sounded like something out of Star Trek. Kevin's response to the text was already incorporated into the text. The many realities represented in the Inn include our reality where Star Trek is a universally recognized work of fiction frequently referenced in other works of fiction.)
The model Time Machine disappears. The Time Traveler is uncertain whether it has gone into the future or the past. The Psychologist says that, if it had gone into the future, then it should still be visible. The outer narrator says that, if it had gone into the past, then it should have been visible when they entered the room and on every previous Thursday when they had been in that room. The Time Traveler's (completely inadequate) reply is that the presentation of the model is diluted. Each of its seconds is, as it were, stretched through one of our minutes so that it makes correspondingly less of an impression. (I have added the word "stretched" to try to make better sense of what is being said. The notion that the model is traveling faster through time when nothing is moving in that direction makes absolutely no sense.) The Psychologist points out that we cannot see a spinning wheel or a flying bullet but we would certainly feel them if we got in their way yet he passes his hand through the space where the model had been and laughs as if this proves his point.
When, like the model Time Machine, Jack Havig disappears:
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I agree that it makes sense to think of Wells' Time Machine, being stationary, then it should still be seen and capable of being felt, whether or not it was going to the post or future. A weak point in Wells' story. But he was pioneering a strange new sub theme of the new genre of science fiction, so we should not expect him to have thought of all the implications, possibilities, objections, etc., applicable to THE TIME MACHINE. That would have to be done by later writers and readers.
Ad astra! Sean
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