three ingenious statements of the circular causality paradox in future settings;
a time travelling organization called the temporal bureau in one of these three works;
what should have been a definitive novel about the immortal Lazarus Long time travelling from the further future of the Future History to World War I when his younger self was just a few years old.
(The title, "Da Capo," had been in the Future History Time Chart from the beginning. Just imagine if that novel had been written properly, summing up everything about World War I, the twentieth century and the Future History.)
Poul Anderson presents:
three ingenious statements of the circular causality paradox in historical settings and, in two of these cases, also in future settings;
a long series about both the circular causality paradox and the causality violation paradox in historical settings;
a time travelling organization called the Time Patrol in this series;
enough time travel short stories to fill a collection.
Anderson gives more and better.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I agree, Anderson surpassed Heinlein. I do wish one of his Time Patrol stories focused on the Sarajevo Assassination.
Well, Stirling did that with "A Slip in Time," the single best story in MULTIVERSE.
Ad astra! Sean
And the most authentic Anderson imitation.
Kaor, Paul!
I agree. And Stirling also said he would love to do a Dominic Flandry pastiche. Maybe he will, if there is ever a second MULTIVERSE.
Sarajevo should never have happened! Only a really weird series of "coincidences" ended with Francis Ferdinand's assassination.
Ad astra! Sean
But I think that there would have been a Great War?
Kaor, Paul!
Possibly, but not necessarily. Also, recall how Stirling discussed how alarmed Germany was by the actual and potential power of Tsarist Russia. His belief was Germany would have given up hope of defeating Russia in a war by 1916/17 if there had been no Sarajevo.
Ad astra! Sean
The German General Staff had calculated that they had a window of opportunity in 1914 to score a rapid victory over the Franco-Russian Entente, but that by 1917 the "Great Program" would make Russia impossible to beat.
The irony is that Germany -did- defeat Russia but not France and Britain in 1914-1918, and France and Britain in 1939-1945, but not Russia.
In the First World War they overestimated Russia and underestimated France, and in the Second World War they did the opposite.
With hindsight, the best thing they could have done in 1914 would be to stand on the defensive in the west and attack Russia in the east; the French would have destroyed their own army with continual attacks in the mountainous and easily defended Franco-German border area, and they could have beaten the Russians handily and pushed them into regime collapse.
If they'd done that (and not invaded Belgium) the British would probably have stayed out of the war, at least initially.
That wasn't on for a number of reasons, starting with the fact that nobody anticipated the strength of the defensive. A defensive on the Franco-German border would have been even more powerful than on our Western Front, because of the terrain and the high ratio of force to space.
And French doctrine, which was completely unrealistic, would have led to an even more massive slaughter than occurred in our 1914.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Very interesting, these speculations on what might have happened if Germany had stayed on the defensive in the west, and focused on quickly defeating Russia in the east. It might have worked, esp. if the UK hesitated and dithered about entering the war.
I can even see a desperate France invading Belgium in an attempt to get at Germany. That would make the UK even less inclined to enter the war.
Ad astra! Sean
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