Anderson's Time Patrol series is a definitive causality violation time travel series. (Is it the only causality violation time travel series?)
Anderson's There Will Be Time is both a circular causality time travel novel and a synthesis of time travel with future history.
Robert Heinlein's "By His Bootstraps" is perhaps the definitive circular causality time travel story.
Anderson's Genesis is an ultimate single-volume Stapledonian future history and a culmination of the theme of Frankenstein, the first science fiction novel. (Is it right to create human beings?)
Giving Heinlein his due, Anderson surpasses him.
Kaor, Paul!
ReplyDeleteI agree Anderson Technic Series surpassed Heinlein's Future History. And Asimov's ultimately disappointing Foundation books.
I argue that other future histories deserve at least honorable mention:
Cordwainer Smith's Instrumentality of Mankind stories
David Wingrove's CHUNG KUO series
H. Beam Piper's Terro Human History
Larry Niven's Known Space stories, with contributions from other writers.
Jerry Pournelle's Co-Dominium timeline, with contributions from other writers.
Ad astra! Sean
Personally I think that if time travel is possible at all (it's mathematically equivalent to FTL), then causality can be disrupted. It would require some equivalent of the Time Patrol built into the structure of reality to prevent it.
ReplyDeleteHistory is -highly- contingent -- each individual is the result of a -particular- sperm meeting a -particular- egg and exchanging -particular- genes. Even a fractional second of difference would mean different individuals.
And individuals matter deeply -- Hernan Cortez, for example.