The Beginning

There Will Be Time, I.

The opening page of Chapter I:

recounts the birth of the central character, Jack Havig, in 1933;

begins to accustom readers to the narrative voice of Robert Anderson who had been described and introduced as a speaking character in the Foreword;

begins to establish the American town of Senlac as a believable place.

The opening sentence reads:

"The beginning shapes the end, but I can say almost nothing of Jack Havig's origins, despite the fact that I brought him into the world." (p. 9)

This reference to a beginning and an end resonates with the reference to spring and autumn near the end of the opening passage on p. 10.

We must remember that the Foreword had informed us that Poul Anderson chose to call the small upper-midwestern town Senlac and that he, not his informant, Robert Anderson, had called the people of a future Federation the Maurai. There should be a uniform published trilogy:

Maurai (the three short stories)

Orion Shall Rise (a long novel)

There Will Be Time

 

- although, for reasons explained by the author, none of these three works is fully consistent with the other two. Maurai and Orion... are two slightly inconsistent works of fiction in the timeline of There Will Be Time.