Unexpected Alternatives

See "Not Even Dreams" and "Fictional Timelines."

In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, the variable timeline is compared to:

a spiderweb;
a mesh of tough rubber bands;
a divertable river;
changeable patterns of sea waves;
a shadow show;
diffraction causing rainbow rings;
diffraction rings.

The references to quantum mechanics are a scientific rationale rather than yet another comparison.

I argued that every work of fiction is set in an alternative timeline although we do not usually notice this and, indeed, such reflections within the text of a contemporary novel would usually distract and detract from the novel. It becomes more evident when there are alternative versions of a single fiction, like the differences between the book and the film. One of Fleming's James Bond novels is possibly set in a different timeline. See here.

Another example is this: before Stieg Larsson died, he planned ten Millennium novels, wrote three which were published and began to write a fourth. Now, David Lagercrantz has written a fourth Millennium novel which is good and authentic but is not the one that Larsson had started. Hopefully, someone else will complete and publish that.

Novels And Time

Our overview of the plot of a novel resembles a time traveler's overview of a period of history. Thus, Poul Anderson's Time Patrolman, Manson Everard, travels to 1944 already knowing the course of World War II prior to that year. Similarly, I have just started to reread Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy but at the beginning of Volume III. The title character is in hospital but I already know how she got there.

Also, Everard knows that history can take a different course and we are familiar with different versions of a story. We have been since the Bible and Greek myth. In the case of the Millennium Trilogy, there are:

the novels;
a Swedish TV adaptation of all three novels;
a Hollywood cinema adaptation of the first novel;
a comic strip adaptation of the first part of the first novel.

We derive an additional pleasure from comparing clever variations of the story as the Greeks did with dramatic reinterpretations of their myths. If this works well, something happens that we do not expect but then things work out as they should. Everard can accept minor variations to history.

Eclipse And Universes

We have a near total eclipse due next Friday morning - a sufficiently Andersonian event, I think - so I will be asked to drive the family to a suitable observation point.

Right now, I am passing back and forth between several fictional universes:

the Terran Federation of Poul Anderson's The Star Fox and Fire Time;

the Angrezi Raj of SM Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers and "Shikari in Galveston";

Stieg Larsson's Millennium;

the Smallville, Metropolis and Arctic Fortress of the Smallville TV series.

Copyright permitting, a fictional character would also be able to travel between these and other such universes. If I were able to write fiction, I would do Jane Austen's Mr Collins en route to dine with his Patroness the Right Honorable Lady Catherine de Burgh at Rosings only to encounter a time traveling Batman who would need his help but whom he would regard as a demon.

Poul Anderson's Old Phoenix scenario easily allows for any and all such bizarre inter-cosmic encounters.