Into Time

It was comparing the decadent Terran aristocracy with the devolved Eloi that led to further reflections on The Time Machine and on subsequent time travel fiction so we are still with Poul Anderson's We Claim These Stars even when we digress overtly. Anderson's Jack Havig resembles the Time Traveler in that he sees the world changing rapidly around him while he becomes invisible and intangible to everyone else. Anderson's Martin Saunders resembles the Time Traveler in that he uses a (very different) temporal vehicle and embarks on a journey into the remote future. Thus, Anderson develops Wellsian premises in different directions.

There are other parallels. The Time Traveler's dinner guests discuss observing the Battle of Hastings whereas Anderson's Time Patrolmen, their timecycles resembling updated, mass-produced Time Machines, intervene in the Battles of Ticinus and Regnano. The Time Traveler finds humanity devolved into Morlocks and Eloi whereas the Time Patrol is founded by the Danellians who will evolve, not devolve, from humanity. Anderson's The Corridors Of Time treats time as a fourth dimension as does the Time Traveler's theory if not also his practice.

Anderson's We Claim These Stars has taken us in one direction to The Time Machine and in another to Ian Fleming's Thunderball. Tomorrow we will probably return to the text of We Claim These Stars.