HG Wells' The Time Machine and Poul Anderson's There Will Be Time are two "classics" of time travel fiction whereas the former and not the latter is a "Classic" of English literature. Scholars of time travel fiction will agree with me about the Anderson novel whereas scholars of English literature will not have heard of it.
Although written by an author of genre sf, There Will Be Time does not obviously belong to that literary ghetto. It is free of any of the accumulated cliches like faster than light drives, routine interstellar travel etc.
Can we talk about conceptual sequels as well as about linear sequels? There Will Be Time is very much a conceptual sequel to The Time Machine. It obliquely acknowledges Wells and ingeniously develops the "curious possibilities" of time travelling that that author had merely hinted at.
The Time Machine has a first person outer narrator, who seems to be Wells himself, and a first person inner narrator, the Time Traveller. Anderson's novel has two first person outer narrators, Poul Anderson and Robert Anderson, and an inner third person viewpoint character, Jack Havig. Thus, Anderson outdoes Wells as regards narrative complexity. In both cases, it is possible that the core narrative is a fiction within the fiction although Wells' outer narrator does see the Time Machine departing right at the end.
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I dislike FTL being dismissed as a mere cliche, not when some serious scientists think it just might be theoretically possible.
There's also Wells' THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, another classic of early science fiction. Anderson wrote a response to it called THE WAR OF TW0 WORLDS, which I also believe was better written and plotted. I wish more people would read it!
Ad astra! Sean
We don't know if FTL is possible or not, not yet. And if FTL is possible, time travel is too, probably.
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