The phrase, "All the time in the world," is important in Ian Fleming's novel, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and in its film adaptation. The phrase had also been used in a film adaptation of The Time Machine where the Time Traveller is said to have "...all the time in the world." In Arthur C. Clarke's collection, The Other Side Of The Sky, his story entitled "All The Time In The World" is followed by another that quotes John Donne's line that time lost cannot be regained.
"All the time in the world" is even truer of Poul Anderson's Time Patrollers. At the press of a button they can instantaneously (in their perception) materialize anywhere or anywhen on the Earth's surface or in its atmosphere and they have indefinitely prolonged lifespans in which to do this. A Patrol agent can spend years in his "past" or "future," then return to his "present" at the moment he left it. he could live through an entire century several times. They have records and some memories of events that "did not happen," at least not in the current timeline. Every time that they time hop, they might possibly arrive in an altered timeline. Surely some time travellers would wind up thinking that everything outside themselves was unreal?
Meanwhile, for a very evocative use of the phrase in a non-sf context, read Fleming.
"Bid time return..."
2 comments:
It's noted that Time Patrol agents are strongly discouraged from doing that, though -- hanging out in their own past. The temptations are obvious -- who hasn't thought "if only I'd done that differently"?
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Or interfering in the past trying to help too much people they came to care about, as in "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth."
Ad astra! Sean
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