The outer narrator relays the Time Traveller's account of his time travelling.
Poul Anderson relays Robert Anderson's accounts of Jack Havig's time travelling. (And one of Havig's fellow time travellers gave the time travel idea to Wells.)
An unnamed first person narrator relays Holger Carlsen's account of his time in the Carolingian universe.
The omniscient narrator describes Holger's later visit to the Old Phoenix inn between the universes.
We notice similarities between the introductory passages of Three Hearts And Three Lions and of There Will Be Time, e.g., physical descriptions of Holger Carlsen and of Robert Anderson.
This a quick post between preparations to travel tomorrow.
I'm unconvinced by any time travel story that has a 'fixed' timeline. Contingency is all!
ReplyDeleteKaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
ReplyDeletePaul: And THE HIGH CRUSADE was relayed to us thru the chronicle written by Brother Parvus.
Mr. Stirling: If time travel is possible, then I have to agree contingency is more likely than time traveling in immutable timelines. Still, I appreciated the stories Anderson wrote using that idea, such as THE DANCER FROM ATLANTIS.
And I loved the cover painting Frank Frazetta made for that story!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: Yes, they're well-written. But some -intelligent- agency would have to guard against 'accidents', or time would have to be not 'real' at all, with all of time existing at the same 'time'.
ReplyDeleteKaor, Mr. Stirling!
ReplyDeleteThat is a serious problem for authors writing stories like this. E.g., Anderson had to have Jack Havig suffer a broken leg to prevent him from averting his father's death in THERE WILL BE TIME.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yes. What -caused- the broken leg? What caused it at just that time?
ReplyDeleteKaor, Mr. Stirling!
ReplyDeleteMaybe that power was God, or an angel acting for Him?
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: that makes sense... but that's a non-theistic universe.
ReplyDeleteKaor, Mr. Stirling!
ReplyDeleteI've read THERE WILL BE TIME repeatedly and I don't recall the story being non-theistic.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: Perhaps you take theism so for granted that you perceive anything that doesn't explicitly reject theism as theistic, while a non-theist might do the reverse.
ReplyDeleteKaor, Jim!
ReplyDeleteI also had in mind how Anderson was never hostile to theists--a view which shows up in so many of his stories that it's hard to think otherwise. IIRC even in THERE WILL BE TIME one of the agents Jack Havig infiltrated into Caleb Wallis' Eyrie was a Dominican friar.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: he wasn't hostile to theists, but he wasn't one himself. That was his 'default' state.
ReplyDeleteKaor, Mr. Stirling!
ReplyDeleteI certainly agree with that being Anderson's default view.
Ad astra! Sean