Anderson And Andrea

 

(That is a neat post title, literally meaning "Son of Andrew and Andrew.")

Regular readers remember that Andrea is a male friend of Italian descent who lives above his brother's Old Pier Bookshop (see the attached image) where I visit him once a month.

The word from Andrea this month:

The world is in a bad state and getting worse. I think that each of us can fill in some of the details.

Reality reflected in Poul Anderson's works:

Time Patrol

"It was a peculiar feeling to read the headlines and know, more or less, what was coming next. It took the edge off, but added a sadness, for this was a tragic era."

-Poul Anderson, "Time Patrol" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, December 2010), pp. 1-53 AT 3, p. 17.

"Here also it was fall, the kind of crisp and brilliant day New York often enjoyed until it became uninhabitable..." (my emphasis)

-Poul Anderson, "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" IN Time Patrol, pp. 333-465 AT 1935, p. 342.

"[Manse Everard] didn't like dirt, disorder, and danger any better than I did. However, he felt he needed a pied-a-terre in the twentieth century, and had grown used to these lodgings before decay had advanced overly far." (my emphasis)

-"The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" AT 1980, p. 352.

The Technic History

"The Technic Civilization series...begins in the twenty-first century, with recovery from a violent period of global unrest known as the Chaos."

-Sandra Miesel, CHRONOLOGY OF TECHNIC CIVILIZATION IN Poul Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, December2009), pp. 611-619 AT p. 611.

We are in the twenty-first century and entering the Chaos. Anderson's fantastic fiction resonates now.