A Crucial Event

When Lugo/Hanno discloses that he was born BC, a natural question from a Christian is, "'You seen the Savior?'" (Boat, p. 63) However, Lugo was doing business in Britannia during the reign of Augustus.

In Anderson's There Will Be Time, Jack Havig was in Jerusalem on the estimated day of the Crucifixion but never told Robert Anderson whether he saw Jesus. Carl Farness of the Time Patrol, mistaken for the Wanderer (Odin), said that he could not defend a paganism that he knew was going under but nor could he in honesty argue for Christ.

The Time Patrol would know what happened in Jerusalem. Their Specialists observe and record every crucial/critical/pivotal/axial event so that their guardian section can defend such events from either extra-temporal interference or quantum fluctuations in space-time-energy. That particular period would be extremely unstable with the danger that even remote observation would affect what was being observed. In fact, Anderson tells us that this is the case in the immediately subsequent period of the Jewish War. Events then are unstable as far away as barbarian Germania. However, as to what happened after an execution in Jerusalem, although Anderson's fictional narratives span history and the cosmos, they leave some major questions unanswered.

This morning, Rogue Sword and There Will Be Time have joined the list of other Anderson works referenced while discussing The Boat Of A Million Years. See here.

Pathetic Fallacy III

Carl, having "'...ridden no earthly horse...'" (Time Patrol, p. 456) since the previous night, must tell Ulrica and Alawin that all who went against Ermanaric are dead, with the bleak consolation that many on Ermanaric's side, including two of his sons, are also dead while he himself is "'...maimed and lamed...'" (ibid.) Poul Anderson did not invent this ending but inherited it from Volsungasaga.

Needless to say, nature matches the characters' feelings:

"Morning brought rain. Driven on a hooting wind..." (ibid.)

"Darkness within seemed deepened by emptiness." (ibid.)

And, when Carl leaves for the last time:

"He strode through the shadows, out the door, into the rain and the wind." (p. 459)

Thus end seventy two years and four generations of one time traveler's interactions with that Gothic family.

A Time Patrolman's Dynasty

Carl's leman, Jorith, died bearing their son, Dagobert.

Dagobert's and Waluburg's oldest son was Tharasmund.

Tharasmund's and Ulrica's sons were Hathawulf and Solbern and their daughter was Swanhild.

Tharasmund's and his leman Erelieva's son was Alawin.

See previous post.

Carl = Odin.
Hathawulf = Hamther.
Solbern = Sorli.
Swanhild = Svanhild.
Alawin = Erp.
Ermanaric = Jormunrek.

In Alawin's case, his mother's name, Erelieva, was elided as Erp and misapplied to him. Despite Ulrica's hostility, Hathawulf and Solbern did not reject or kill Alawin but Carl forebade him to accompany his half-brothers against Ermanaric. Alawin's task is to lead the family to safety while the wounded Ermanaric declines and kills himself.

When Hathawulf is born, Carl accepts that this is Hamther and that Tharasmund's next son, to be called Solbern, will be Sorli. It does not surprise Carl that his great-grandsons are characters in the story that he is researching.

Some passages perfectly combine mythological thinking with historical information:

"Dagobert stayed unrestful...folk said that was the blood of his father in him, and that he heard the wind at the edge of the world forever calling. When he came back from his trip south, he brought news that a Roman lord hight Constantine had finally put down his rivals and become master of the whole Empire." (Time Patrol, pp. 382-383)

We know of Constantine.

"'...against time the gods themselves are powerless. I did what I was doomed to do.'" (p. 457)

Carl's hearers cannot possibly know what he means by "time." I have quoted two powerful phrases about time, gods and doom but this paragraph needs to be read in full.

The Nibelung-Volsung Cycle

Poul Anderson, "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006), pp. 333-465.

What Carl Farness Tells Manson Everard
Sources for Wagner's Ring operatic tetralogy:
the German Nibelungenlied;
the Icelandic Volsungasaga;
the Elder and the Younger Edda.

Sigurd the Volsung was tricked into marrying Gudrun the Gjuking instead of Brynhild the Valkyrie, leading to jealousy between them and eventually to his death.

In German:
these characters are Siegfried, Kriemhild of Burgundy and Brunhild of Isenstein;
the pagan gods are absent.

Gudrun or Kriemhild later married King Atli or Etzel, who is Attila the Hun.

Nibelungenlied
Kriemhild lured her brothers to Etzel's court where she had them killed in revenge for their murder of Siegfried. Horrified, Hildebrand, a follower of Dietrich of Bern, killed Kriemhild.

Volsungasaga
Atli lured Gudrun's brothers because he wanted the Rhinegold. Despite her warning, they came and were killed when they would not yield the hoard. Gudrun served Atli his and her sons as ordinary food, killed him in his sleep, burned his hall and left with Svanhild, her daughter by Sigurd.
In Gothland, Gudrun married and had two sons, Hamther and Sorli. The Gothic king Jormunrek (really Ermanaric) had Svanhild trampled to death by horses either because he had married her and she was falsely accused of infidelity or because she had married someone else who plotted against the king and was hanged. Gudrun persuaded Hamther and Sorli to attack Jormunrek. En route, they killed their half-brother, Erp, when he offered to join them.
Invulnerable to steel, Hamther and Sorli killed many of the king's men and severely wounded him. However, Jormunrek and his surviving men learned that the brothers were vulnerable to stones either because Hamther let this slip or because Odin appeared and betrayed them. They were stoned to death.

A Mythological Sandwich

In Poul Anderson's "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth," each chapter is headed by a year date. The last two are 43 and 374. (The texts make clear that these are both AD.)

In the following Time Patrol story, "Star of the Sea," four chapters are headed with large Roman numerals, the rest with smaller Arabic numerals. The first three chapters are I, 1 and 2.

Thus, we read in this order:

43, about time travelers in pre-Polynesian Hawaii;
374, about the Gothic King Ermanaric;
I, about a god and a goddess;
1, about Romans fighting Germanic barbarians;
2, about time travelers in Amsterdam, 1986.

And that gives us a double decker sandwich:

science fiction
historical fiction
mythology
historical fiction
science fiction

This cannot have been planned but is an excellent demonstration of Anderson's versatility.

Pathetic Fallacy II

In the concluding section of Poul Anderson's "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth," headed "374," two things approach, a storm and the Huns. They are almost identified.

Ermanaric seated alone sees the stars above, hears wind whimper and wolves howl, watches sunset smolder westward and blue-black thunderheads gather in the east, the direction from which the Huns approach; they have crossed the river and smashed an army "underhoof" (Time Patrol, p. 464).

"Those clouds now loomed across a fourth of heaven. Lightnings played through their caverns. Before dawn, the storm would be here. As yet, though, only its forerunner wind had arrived, winter-cold in the middle of summer. Elsewhere the stars still shone in their hordes." (pp. 463-464)

Caverns in clouds! Ermanaric sees the stars as pitiless. Nature and his feelings are identical. He mumbles that he did not heed the gods but trusted in his own strength. Has he learned guilt? No. He accuses the gods of trickery and cruelty. But he realizes that he killed the men who would with him have cast back the Huns. And, as he kills himself, the thunder sounds like Hunnish horse hooves.

How appropriate that, as we turn the page, we stay with the mythological world view and read about the goddess, Niaerdh, creating life.

Hawaii

The Time Patrol's pre-Polynesian Hawaiian resort exists for thousands of years. (Could a Patrol member be based there for all that time?) Carl and Laurie Farness get a cottage there for a month. This makes no difference to the rest of their lives. They can return to 1930's New York at the moment they left it. He is in the Patrol; she is not - but presumably she also benefits from future anti-age treatment.

"We sat on a deck which abutted the building. Dusk gathered cool and blue in the garden, across the flowering forest beyond. Eastward, land dropped quickly to where the sea glimmered quicksilver; westward the evening star trembled above Mauna Kea. A brook chimed. Here was the peace that heals." (Time Patrol, pp. 459-460)

It was indeed. It will never be possible to quote all such worthy passages from Poul Anderson's works. This paragraph, like many others, deserves to be included in an illustrated collection of quotations from the Time Patrol series.

Everard, visiting the Farness' cottage, tells Carl:

"'Since the rest of your career seems free of any more disarray than is normal for a field agent, I couldn't justify spending lifespan and Patrol resources on further investigation.'" (p. 460)

Time Patrollers are usually not allowed to know their own futures although Everard has just given Carl a general impression of his. But the word "seems" is important. It is always possible that Everard will return from a mission to the far past into a timeline where Carl's life is indeed in disarray.

Weather And The Seasons

In Poul and Karen Anderson's King of Ys Tetralogy as in Poul Anderson's "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" and "Star of the Sea," chapters often begin by describing seasonal changes and weather, e.g.:

"Winter descended and then slowly, in surges of wind, snow, icy rain, drew back." (Time Patrol, p. 362)

This is because people in former ages lived with the elements:

"Nature - the wilderness, the mysteries of day and night, summer and winter, storm, stars, growth, death - pervaded [this archaic land] and the souls of the folk." (TP, p. 539)

Time travelers can alternate between archaic lands and modern cities. I mentioned Amsterdam in "Star of the Sea." In "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth," Carl Farness travels back and forth between the fourth century Goths upon whom "Winter descended..." and 1930's New York:

"I came out of the New York base into the cold and early darkness of December..." (TP, p. 407)

"Laurie and I went walking in Central Park. March gusted boisterous around us." (TP, p. 422)

And, on a visit to 1980:

"Winter had fallen uptime. Snow tumbled past the windows of [Everard's] apartment, making a cave of white stillness for us." (TP, p. 385)

First century Germans, fourth century Goths and Ysans, experienced the elements in a very different way from that of modern city dwellers. Nevertheless, the descent of winter and the sight of falling snow unite us across the ages. 

The Hypothesis Realized

Some science fiction works by different authors are alternative answers to a common question. In Stephen Fry's Making History, because Hitler's father is made infertile, another previously unknown figure leads the Nazi Party and makes things in some ways worse by avoiding war so that there is still a powerful Nazi state decades later. Unfortunately, Fry's time travel logic is nonexistent. Among other problems, he describes cinema special effects when causality is violated. I wrote to him at the time but no correspondence ensued.

Poul Anderson is better than most at time travel. A few authors are as good as he is on some aspects but not across the board.

Is anyone out there wondering: How long can Shackley keep posting about the Time Patrol? I am convinced that this series is inexhaustible and that a word by word analysis would continue to reveal previously unsuspected nuances. However, there is going to be a limit to how much I can say about it without taking a break.

My current agenda is:

finish reading Stieg Larsson's third Millennium novel;
start reading Greg Bear's Eon, which I have just acquired;
post about Eon, possibly on the Science Fiction blog but more probably on Poul Anderson Appreciation because of Eon's Andersonian connections.

The only Anderson works that I have yet to track down are the NESFA collections Vol 2-up. This will be done, although individual short stories will feel like an anti-climax after the intricacies of the Technic History and the Time Patrol. 

A Hypothetical Case

Poul Anderson's Time Patrol members discuss and, less frequently, experience alternative timelines. Here is a hypothetical case discussed at the Academy:

"...Hitler's father had been born as Alois Schicklgruber, illegitimate, result of a chance affair between an Austrian bourgeois and a housemaid of his...

"But if you headed off that liaison, which you could easily have done without harming anybody, then you aborted all history that followed. By 1935, say, the world would already be different. Maybe it would become better than the original (in some respects; for a while) or maybe it would become worse. I could imagine, for example, that humans never got into space. Surely they would not have done it anywhere near as soon; it might well have occurred too late to rescue a gutted Earth. I could not imagine that any peaceful utopia would have resulted." (Time Patrol, pp. 424-425)

Probably not. Events would have needed more direction than that. The only action discussed here is preventing the affair between Hitler's grandparents. Time travel theoreticians discuss the "Grandfather Paradox": what would happen to me if I killed one of my grandfathers before he met my grandmother?" We can talk about parents instead of grandparents and can prevent meetings without killing anyone.

The answer is that, if there is a single timeline, then no one did kill your grandfather before he met your grandmother and, if there are multiple timelines, then you can be born in one though not in another. There is no reason why you should cease to exist having killed your grandfather. Prevention of your conception prevents your birth. It does not allow you to exist into adulthood, then disappear.

Resonance II

See here.

I suggested that a refusal by Carl Farness to complete a causal circle might have two consequences but now I doubt the second consequence.

We are imagining a timeline in which:

in 372 AD, Carl, in the role of Odin, appears on his timecycle, a metal-boned "...skeletal horse..." (Time Patrol, p. 454), and betrays his Gothic followers;

Manson Everard, roving the period from end to end, confirms that the Volsungasaga story of Odin betraying his followers originated specifically in this action by Carl;

in 1935, Everard tells Carl that he must travel to 372 to betray his followers.

Carl complies but the question is: what would have happened if he had refused?

1st Consequence
The Carl who had appeared and enacted the betrayal in 372 arrives in 1935, so Carl has duplicated himself. Patrol members have to avoid this kind of paradox.

2nd Consequence (which I now doubt)
Anyone traveling to a date earlier than 372 and returning futureward might arrive in a timeline in which history was different because the betrayal had not happened.

But I now think that, if someone travels pastward along a timeline in which the betrayal happened, then he should return futureward along that same timeline unless, while he is 372 or earlier, he does something (I don't know exactly what) to prevent Carl from making the betrayal. (Our hypothetical new time traveler might prevent Carl's/Odin's followers from attacking King Ermanaric so that they would not be present in Ermanaric's hall when Odin appeared in order to betray them?)

However, this is all speculative. What the Patrol definitely wants to do is, first, to prevent the paradox of Carl duplicating himself and, secondly, as far as possible, to prevent even the slightest possibility of a timeline in which the betrayal did not happen. Both these purposes are served by getting Carl to leave 1935 with the intention of appearing in 372 and betraying his followers. This completes the circle and prevents anything else from happening.

But this leads me back to the question; what does Everard mean by "...a resonance..."? (p. 449)

Resonance

In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, we appreciate not only the details of the historical periods but also the subtleties of the temporal paradoxes. Other time travel novels, including three by Anderson, ingeniously present intricate circular causality paradoxes but the Time Patrol series is the subtlest presentation of the more difficult causality violation paradox and also a unique take on this topic.

"'An incipient causal loop is always dangerous...It can set up a resonance, and the changes of history that that produces can multiply catastrophically. The single way to make it safe is to close it. When the Worm Ouroboros is biting his own tail, he can't devour anything else.'"
-Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006), p. 449.

"An incipient causal loop..." must mean a potential causal circle that needs action by the Time Patrol to complete it but what is a resonance? Carl Farness visiting the fourth century Goths has been mistaken by them for Odin. Their literature relates that Odin appeared in a battle and betrayed his followers. In the twentieth century, Everard tells Carl that he must travel back once more to enact that betrayal.

If Carl refuses, then history cannot and will not retroactively change because of his refusal. He and Everard are conversing in a timeline where the betrayal did happen and was recorded in literature. However, the first consequence of his refusal would be that the Carl who did perform the betrayal will return to the twentieth century. To prevent that duplication of himself, the Carl who is talking to Everard must travel back to the fourth century in order to be the Carl who appeared and betrayed his followers.

The second consequence might be that anyone returning from a period earlier than the fourth century could arrive in an altered timeline where the betrayal had not happened. Is this potential double consequence what is meant by "a resonance"?

People From The Future V

In the early fourth century, Carl Farness of the Time Patrol, known only as "Carl," takes Jorith of the Goths as a leman. When she has a seizure immediately after bearing a son, Carl goes to the locked room that conceals his timecycle and jumps to the Patrol base in 1930's New York where he gets the duty officer to make an emergency call for a doctor. Kwei-fei Mendoza arrives from 2319 and accompanies Carl on his timecycle back to Gothland but is unable to save Jorith because her difficult childbirth had ruptured an aneurysm of the anterior cerebral artery. I had to google the word "primiparous."

This time, we do learn more about the futurian, Mendoza, because, after the event, she interviews Carl in her hospital on the Moon:

artificial gravity;
air tinged with roses and new-mown hay;
deep violet carpet with twinkling starpoints;
subtle swirling wall colors;
a large window or screen showing lunar mountains and craters and a black sky with a full Earth.

When Carl explains that he and his wife had been young during the 1960's and '70's, "'...a period of revolution in sexual mores...,'" Mendoza replies, "'Fashions come and go.'" -Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006), p. 375.

But she does not say what the "fashion" is in her time. Anderson keeps this vague. We are surprised to be told as much as we are about a Lunar base in the twenty fourth century. This glimpse of the future is unique in the series.

Carl asks whether he and Mendoza could not travel to before Jorith's pregnancy, bring her to 2319, fix her artery, blank her memories and return her to Gothland. Mendoza states the usual reason why not:

"'The Patrol does not change what has been. It preserves it.'" (p. 376)

But there is another reason. The Carl who took Jorith to and from 2319 would be different from the younger Carl who would then attend a birth that was not followed by the mother's death so Carl would thus have duplicated himself -

- unless the younger self who attended the birth is deleted with that deleted section of the timeline and thus also from any later sections of the timeline that he would have traveled to so that he can be replaced without duplication by the older self who took Jorith to and from 2319? The Patrol theory of time travel is not fully clear on all such points.

The Wanderer

Carl Farness:

born in 1934;
recruited to the Time Patrol in 1980;
attends the Patrol Academy in the Oligocene Period;
is supervised by Unattached Agent Manson Everard, based in New York, 1980;
relocates with his wife to 1930's New York; 
visits and studies four generations of Goths, 300-372;
fetches a doctor from the Moon, 2319, to 302;
meets the Christian missionary, Ulfilas, on a journey lasting from 341 to 344; 
reports to Herbert Ganz in Berlin, 1858;
plays the role of Odin in the Volsungasaga in 372;
recuperates in the Patrol's Hawaiian Lodge in 43.

And, unfortunately, that is all that we know of Carl. This part of his career is spread across the first, fourth, nineteenth, twentieth and twenty fourth centuries.

The Will Of Weard

Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006).

Here are some more statements that make perfect sense both as myth and as science fiction. Carl says:

"'...the will of Weard stands not to be altered...Know that against time the gods themselves are powerless. I did what I was doomed to do.'" (p. 457)

In the myths, both men and gods are ruled by Weard, Fate. The substitution of the word "...time..." is significant in a science fictional time travel context. Now the meaning is that a time traveler, even one who is mistaken for a god, is not allowed to change the past.

When Ermanaric challenged the Wanderer and the latter replied, "'Weard will not have that'" (p. 421), it was understood that he spoke from knowledge. As a Time Patrolman, it was Carl's job neither to kill Ermanaric, who was known to have died otherwise later, nor to be killed by him to no good purpose.

"'I did what I was doomed to do...'" has a rather odd status. By steeping himself in knowledge of the period and roving it from end to end, Everard became certain that the saga recorded Odin's betrayal of his followers because Carl appeared and betrayed them so that is what he must do. He does it because he did it. There is no other reason.

This causal loop is a complete, self-contained circle whereas the causal circle in "Star Of The Sea" is an effect not only of itself but also of a prevented timeline. As Guion says to Wanda:

"'...think of the countless world lines intermeshed throughout the continuum as a spiderweb...There are occasions when we know only that the web is troubled, not where or when the source of the disturbance lies; for that source perhaps does not exist in our yet, our reality. We can only try to trace it back up the threads -'"
- Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), p. 135.

He stops because he does not want to frighten her and she thinks, "This could do it, though." (ibid.)

The Wreck Of The World

Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006).

This dialogue between the Wanderer and his great-grandson, who has just become a father, is a perfect blend of science fiction, historical fiction and mythological writing -

Hathawulf: You have worn yourself out for us. If you are of the Anses, then they are not tireless.
Wanderer: No. They too shall perish in the wreck of the world.
Hathawulf: But that is far off in time, surely.
Wanderer: World after world has gone down in ruin ere now, my son, and will in the years and thousands of years to come. I have done for you what I was able. (pp. 442-443)

Carl Farness, called the Wanderer, and believed to be Wodan, is conditioned against revealing the fact of time travel which, in any case, his Gothic descendants would scarcely understand. Readers know that, when Carl speaks of ruined worlds, he means ways of life, civilizations, planets and even possibly universes and that he speaks on the basis not of ancient godly wisdom but of future scientific knowledge. But none of this needs to be made explicit in the dialogue.

A few pages later, Sibicho the Vandal almost quotes the Bible:

"'She calls on her witchy ancestor? Suffer her not to live! Let earth purify itself of that blood she bears!" (p. 445)

And an event occurs that is described in the Elder Edda and the Volsungasaga... Carl cannot prevent it.

A Minor Inconsistency

Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006).

After his lifetime, an author's texts cannot be changed but must be preserved as he left them. While he was alive, I would have suggested one minor alteration to Poul Anderson - although it is merely an editing job.

The Wanderer, Tharasmund, Liuderis and Randwar lead a band of Teurings to confront Ermanaric, King of the East Goths. The captain of Ermanaric's guard says that a few may be allowed to enter the king's dwelling after the rest have pulled back. Liuderis agrees to lead those who pull back.

The Wanderer, Tharasmund and Randwar enter the hall, pass benches of armed guardsmen and approach the high seat at the far wall. Ermanaric sees "...three wayworn, mud-splashed newcomers..." (p. 419). Thus, neither their names nor their number are in any doubt.

Yet, when Ermanaric insultingly dismisses them, Randwar draws his sword while both Tharasmund and Liuderis snatch for theirs. Suddenly, Liuderis, who had agreed to wait outside and who had not been one of the three that entered the hall, now is inside the hall with the others, a continuity error that could not have occurred in a film but may be missed by casual readers of prose fiction. In fact, I am sure that I have spotted this inconsistency only by rereading the text so often!

Carl And The Teurings II

Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006).

The West Goths or Visigoths move to the Roman frontier at the Danube. The East Goths or Ostrogoths, including the Teurings, are united under King Geberic.

Dagobert:

marries Waluburg who bears a son, Tharasmund, in the same year that Ermanaric, son of Geberic, is born;

leads the Teurings south from the Vistula to the Dnieper, partly because his occasionally visiting father, the Wanderer, had told him that "...it was the fate of the Goths..." (p. 383);

dies in a battle that drives back an alliance of the troll-like Huns;

is held, while dying, by the Wanderer who appears and descends from his metal horse on the battlefield;

is succeeded as chieftain of the Teurings by the thirteen year old Tharasmund who, later, marries Ulrica, daughter of King Athanaric of the West Goths, and names their sons Hathawulf and Solbern and their daughter Swanhild.

Carl, the Wanderer, has traveled to the fourth century to find the source of a story about two brothers, Hamther and Sorli, who were stoned to death while attacking King Jormunrek of the Goths to avenge their half-sister, Svanhild. Carl has identified Jormunrek with Ermanaric and now says that the names Hathawulf and Solbern will be elided to Hamther and Sorli as the story moves north over time. Thus, he himself is the great-grandfather of the brothers and sister.

If Carl had not intervened, then Jorith, marrying someone else, could still have borne a son who would lead the Teurings; her grandson, marrying a West Goth, could in turn have named his first son Hathawulf from his wife's kin. Thus, although Carl has inserted himself into a central position within the family that he had merely intended to study, it is not necessarily the case that he has simply caused the events in question. Nevertheless, I would have expected both him and his colleagues to be somewhat surprised and concerned about how quickly and easily he has become so entangled in the events that he is simply meant to observe.

Earlier And Later In The Series

Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006).

In "Delenda Est" (1955), Piet Van Sarawak is from Venus in the early twenty fourth century. In "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" (1983), there is a hospital on the Moon in 2319. These fictitious dates entail that the Venerian colony and the Lunar hospital are contemporary with each other. However, the publication dates of the two stories present an alternative perspective.

In those twenty eight years, it was learned that Venus was not a planet that would be easily colonized. Science fiction written in the mid-1950's assumes a Venus as easily colonizable as Australia whereas sf written in the mid-1980's draws on considerably more detailed information about conditions in other parts of the Solar System. Writing in 1983, Anderson simply does not refer to Van Sarawak's Venus but instead presents a more restrained view of the future in space with no mention of anything beyond the Moon - although I found the artificial gravity rather surprising.

The Venus colony is not denied. Anderson was careful not to include any future information that would be negated during his lifetime. I think of these two stories as earlier and later in the series rather than as contemporary with each other.

2319

Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006).

In "Time Patrol," Manson Everard meets an Academy instructor born in 9573, another who is a veteran of the Martian war of 3890 and a Danellian from more than a million years hence;

in "Gibraltar Falls," he meets Feliz a Rach of the First Matriarchy two millennia hence;

in "Delenda Est," he is with "Piet Van Sarawak (Dutch-Indonesian-Venusian, early twenty-fourth A.D.)" (p. 174);

in "Ivory, And Apes, And Peacocks," he meets the director of Jerusalem Base between the birth of David and the fall of Judah, who "...was born in twenty-ninth century New Edom on Mars..." and is a veteran of the Second Asteroid War. (p. 307)

However, all of these encounters occur in our past. Only in a single passage, 2319 (pp. 374-378), does the action of the Time Patrol series move beyond the twentieth century or even beyond the date of publication of the current story.

The information about the future is necessary background for stories about journeys from the present to the past. Also, Anderson is not only an imaginative but also a restrained writer. In his multi-volume future history, the Technic Civilization series, he never tells us why the Ancients/Chereionites had disappeared or died out or even whether the last Chereionite, Aycharaych, survived the bombardment of his home planet.

That single excursion to 2319, approximately contemporaneous with Van Sarawak, is a surprise that divulges little:

a hospital on the Moon has artificial gravity, scented air and a carpeted floor;
an electronic skullcap gives hours of sleep;
a window or screen shows mountains, craters and a black sky with a full white and blue Earth.

On p. 379, Carl is back in 302.