"...night had come, and suddenly dawn seemed intolerably distant, as if it lay at the far end of an interminable corridor of time." (CHAPTER SEVEN, I, p. 154)
Mainstream authors sometimes refer to sf. We have seen that Howatch refers to clones and triffids. Poul Anderson's The Corridors Of Time was published before April's Grave although I doubt that Howatch was alluding to that particular sf novel. Sometimes mainstream authors unknowingly echo sf ideas.
In The Corridors Of Time, spatial corridors are rotated onto the temporal axis so that it becomes possible literally to walk from one time to another. We might imagine night as a tunnel or corridor from evening to morning but, of course, in reality we do not move anywhere. We lie in bed while our part of the Earth's surface moves back towards the sun.
Everything extends and moves through space and endures through time. Motion through space takes time. Nothing moves through time, unless Anderson's time corridors could be constructed.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Aha, that "corridor of time" by Howatch immediately reminded me of Anderson's novel THE CORRIDORS OF TIME, altho I agree it's unlikely she had Anderson's work in mind.
I took three books to read while I was away: THE BOAT OF A MILLION YEARS, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, and MAMELUKES, by Jerry Pournelle (completed by Philip Pournelle and David Weber). At first, it was just a bit slow for me to get into, but it rapidly became a page turner I greatly enjoyed. Maybe not to every body's taste, since it focuses so much on war, politics, and intrigues.
And Pournelle did include explicit references to science fiction works and authors in his own books. I took a keen interest in this bit from page 693 of the Baen Books mass paperback edition: "Sounds even more like the Venetian Republic," Rick thought. "At least as much as I can remember of it. Which was mostly derived from historical novels. One by Poul Anderson, another by Sabatini. Both pretty careful authors. And a biography of Casanova."
I was pleased to come across a mention of Anderson in Pournelle's last book. Which was not really surprising, seeing how they were both SF writers and old friends. A few seconds thought made me decide Pournelle had Anderson's ROGUE SWORD in mind. We see a lot about Venice in that book, even if in rather negative ways.
Ad astra! Sean
Ahem, I have to point out that the very title of that Anderson masterpiece comes from a verse in The day is gome by Longfellow...
Kaor, Skybolt!
I'm very glad to see a new commentator here! And Dr. Shackley kindly included a link to that Longfellow poem you mentioned in another blog piece. I was interested to discover Anderson might very well have taken the title of his book THE CORRIDORS OF TIME from Longfellow's poem.
I hope we see more comments from you.
Ad astra! Sean
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