We know in advance that a text that we are about to read is classified as fiction, even as science fiction, and we probably also know from the title, blurb etc that it is about time travel. So we are not surprised when Jack Havig's mother, suddenly hearing a baby crying in the next room, walks through carrying her baby and is so surprised at seeing an identical baby that she drops her baby only to see it disappear in mid-air... We just think about it and work out what must have happened but meanwhile the unfortunate mother is freaked to say the least...
I think that such events are logically possible but not that there is the slightest possibility in any other sense that they will happen.
9 comments:
There are hints of ways around relativity in current advance physics. Not that I understand them!
But, even if time travel is possible in some shape or form, it won't take the form of me appearing from five minutes in the future.
Kaor, to Both!
Excellent as Anderson's time traveling stories were, what really grips me are his stories using some means of FTL interstellar travel. And it's the possible hints at the cutting edge of speculative physics on ways of getting around the light speed barrier that makes me hope for that.
Much as I admire the Time Patrol stories and novels like THE DANCER FROM ATLANTIS, I tend to prefer Anderson's alternate/parallel worlds stories. Works like his two OPERATION books, THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS, and A MIDSUMMER TEMPEST. Probably because alternate history stories like these and Stirling's IN THE COURTS OF THE CRIMSON KINGS are at least theoretically less implausible than time traveling.
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
One thing which struck me while reading IN THE COURTS... was the passion your Martians have for "atanj," their version of chess, I've been wondering what these Martians might think of our Western/Terran chess? Either childishly simple or with maddeningly rigid rules?
I like chess but I am not at all good at playing chess!
Sh'u Maz! Sean
Sean: they'd find it rather simple, but occasionally refreshing. Of course, they have an average IQ of about 140...
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
That's rather ego crushing when I think of how often I lost chess games! I'm rather sorry we never saw Teyud trying out Terran chess--esp. because she was more open to accepting new ideas from Terrans than many Martians.
Btw, one of the Terrans in your book said the average Martian IQ was 125, not 140. Which is still plenty good!
Sh'u Maz! Sean
Ooopsie!
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
An average Martian IQ of 125 is still plenty good! And I look forward to reading THE LORDS OF CREATION when it's pub. on May 20. I'll be very interested in again seeing Marc Vitrac and the hominins of Venus, the King Beneath the Mountain, Teyud* and her consort Jeremy Wainman, and any number of Terrans of rival factions.
Do the Neanderthals of Venus also make an appearance?
Sh'u Maz! Sean
*It seems odd for a female monarch like Teyud to be called a King, rather than Queen.
This blog covers not only Poul Anderson books that have been published but also SM Stirling books that have not been published yet.
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