And they do, don't they? How better to illustrate changing times than by citing two novels about time three to four generations apart: The Time Machine (1895) and There Will Be Time (1973). Both are sf except that genre sf did not yet exist in 1895. Both novels theoretically discuss and imaginatively describe time traveling. Wells comments on Victorian class divisions whereas Anderson comments on 1960s radical politics. Each does the same thing in his own time. And another two and a half generations have passed.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I know Wells' THE TIME MACHINE was a pioneer in the time traveling subgenre of SF, but I simply don't think it was as GOOD as, say, Ward Moore's "Bring the Jubilee," or L. Sprague De Camp's LEST DARKNESS FALL, to name two later pioneering works in that branch of SF. I would put that down to changes in how authors wrote, partly because of the example of Ernest Hemingway. A terser, quicker, "lighter" style.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
You are not comparing like with like. Wells, Moore and de Camp do completely different things with time travel.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
True. Because despite being almost certainly inspired by Wells, they went off in very directions from his path. I was trying to suggest that Wells wrote very much in a 19th century way, at least in his earlier works. That is not bad, I have read 19th writers with pleasure, but I thought some of Wells works rather heavy and ponderous.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I think that THE TIME MACHINE is almost poetic in its description of time traveling.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I've read THE TIME MACHINE at least twice. I will make a note of what you said and put it with my copy, so I will know to keep in mind what you said the next time I read it.
ad astra! Sean
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