Poul Anderson not only wrote more future histories than any other author but also created two ways to unify all future histories written by himself and others. They could be either alternative timelines accessible from the inter-universal inn, the Old Phoenix, or divergent timelines investigated and deleted by the Time Patrol. Holmes and Watson show up both in the Old Phoenix and in a Time Patrol case.
Furthermore, multiple future histories, the Old Phoenix sequence and the unique Time Patrol series do not exhaust Anderson's achievements which also include heroic fantasy, historical fantasy, historical fiction, detective fiction, hard sf, poetry, non-fiction and time travel fiction with the alternative premise of an immutable timeline. That might be a complete list but I am not sure.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I wish Poul Anderson could have written more book length non-fictions. Or had at least revised and updated THERMONUCLEAR WARFARE and IS THERE LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS?
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
We always have to think that, if PA had done more of what we wanted, then he would have done less of something else.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I agree. I thought of the point I stressed above because of reading how, when a publisher suggested reprinting IS THERE LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS?, perhaps around 1990, Anderson declined because so much more had been discovered in astronomy since 1964 that the book would have needed a drastic revision. And of course Anderson was busy with other projects in 1990.
Dated tho the astronomy of IS THERE LIFE..." is, other parts of that book are still relevant.
Ad astra! Sean
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