The narrator, Ospak Ulfsson, knows that Iceland will soon be Christian because he has met a time traveler although we do not learn this immediately. An author like Poul Anderson finds every possible way to introduce an idea, in this case the idea of time travel. Martin Saunders steps into the time projector... Ospak reminisces... Manse Everard attends a job interview... These are all time travel stories.
The Time Patrol series presents three fateful meetings on beaches and "The Man Who Came Early" adds a fourth so first we read a description of the beach:
heavy waves, white and gray to the horizon;
smells of salt and kelp;
gulls audible above;
washed up fish and timber, the latter sought by Ospak;
a maybe shipwrecked man wearing a strange helmet inscribed with Roman letters, "MP." (p. 189)
Other aspects of the stranger's garb alert the reader that he is one of us. Speaking accented Norse, he claims that he was crossing a street in a town during a storm when he heard a crash and then was on the beach. OK. We recognize what is happening even if neither Ospak nor the MP does yet. Every sf reader knows that a thunder storm can propel a character backward in time...
10 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I immediately thought of how, in LEST DARKNESS FALL, De Camp had Martin Padway somehow cast into the past by lightning and a thunderstorm. Which makes me think Anderson meant the thunderstorm of his story to be a subtle homage to De Camp.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Anderson is surely commenting on both A CONNECTICUT YANKEE and LEST DARKNESS FALL. The title character of "The Man Who Came Early" neither succeeds nor even survives in the past.
Paul.
In fact, see the Wikipedia article on this Anderson story.
Kaor, Paul!
And I agree with what you and the author of the Wikipedia article about "The Man Who Came Early" said. The story is not only a homage to De Camp but also a critique of it and Mark Twain's CONNECTICUT YANKEE story. That is, Anderson believed, quite rightly, in the foolishness of underestimating people of past times and that it would not be THAT easy for a modern man to survive and prosper if thrown into the past. I sure as heck don't think I would do at all well if I was cast back in time a thousand years!
And in another story we see Anderson suggesting that "primitive" Romans from Augustan times, hardened and toughened in the "school of hard knocks" might do very well if they were brought back to modern times and escaped their captors. I can't recall the title, tho.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But that story sounds worth tracking down. Was it time travel?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, the story I THINK was written by Anderson used time traveling. Problem is, I simply can't recall the title. MADDENING!
I know this story is somewhere in one of my books, whether or not by Anderson. Frustrating!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Stay calm!
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Ha! I'll try. This is one of those small, niggling things in the back of my mind that I simply can't seem able to recall.
Ad astra! Sean
Gothic Rome was an easier environment for Padway than Viking-era Iceland is for the MP: it’s a city, it has fairly sophisticated economic institutions (like banking) and it’s not nearly as anarchic.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Good points. I'm thinking of things like codified law,* functioning cities not yet too run down, banking, a still sound gold currency, etc.
Ad astra! Sean
*As found, for example, in the Theodosian and Justinian Codes.
Post a Comment