Different Kinds Of Universes

Sf writers imagine future periods or alternative histories whereas fantasy writers imagine alternative realities with magic instead of science and supernatural beings instead of extraterrestrials. Poul Anderson did both. A divergent timeline where the Carthaginians won the Second Punic War or where there was no Reformation is closer to home than a different kind of universe where the Carolingian myths were real, where magic worked or where Shakespearean plays, including A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest, were true histories. However, Anderson's comprehensiveness includes an inter-universal inn, the Old Phoenix, where travellers from different kinds of universes meet, including van Rijn from Anderson's own Technic History and Rhysling from Robert Heinlein's Future History. This observation is nothing new by now but is occasioned by a remark in T'Kela And Pax that sometimes the future histories seem very close.

Breakfast post. Crumpets, jam and coffee. We are up early for a long river walk.