Everard In His New York Apartment And Elsewhere

We first see Manse Everard in his New York apartment in 1954 and last see him there in 1990 by which time he is officially sixty six years of age. Intermediate dates are:

         Cynthia Denison and John Sandoval visit
1960 Everard is there before going to the lodge
1980 he interviews Carl Farness twice
1987 on 24 May, Carlos Navarro reports to Everard
1987 Guion visits
1988 Wanda phones
1990 in February, Wanda phones again
1990 in February or March, Guion visits again

This is a bald summary. Of course, in these conversations, important issues, connected with most of the Patrol missions to be described in the series, are discussed.

Other significant dates for Everard are:

in AD 43, he is in Hawaii with the Farnesses and in Northern Europe with Janne Floris;

in 1894, he visits the Patrol London base as a new recruit and, in 1885, he visits the same base again as an experienced Unattached agent.

Milieu HQ will have records of every visit made by Everard to the London office but he does not learn of the visits until he makes them.

Every Human Being

"Every writer, like every other human being, is unique, partly because of the accidents of heredity, partly because of the events of his or her life, perhaps especially early life."
-Poul Anderson, Going For Infinity (New York, 2002), Introduction, pp. 11-12.

I agree:

heredity;
life events;
early life.

So I do not believe in "rebirth." Buddhist teaching is accurate insofar as:

actions have consequences;
wrong actions have bad consequences;
bad consequences can include inner guilt, regret etc and also outer repercussions.

However, we do not seem to suffer the full possible consequences of wrong actions - hopefully, just enough to learn from. And, to quote my friend, Andrea, the goddess Fortuna seems to hold sway over much of what happens, starting with the accidents of heredity.

Toward Completion

Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series was complete in:

The Shield of Time (1990);
The Time Patrol (1991).

The Shield Of Time was a new long novel whereas The Time Patrol was an omnibus collection of all previously published stories plus the new short novel, "Star of the Sea." (The title, Tales of the Time Patrol, was listed as "forthcoming" in the first edition of The Shield of Time.)

Then, asked to contribute to an anthology of original short stories about the Knights Templar, Anderson wrote a new Time Patrol short story, "Death and the Knight," which was published in Tales of the Knights Templar (1995), edited by Katherine Kurtz.

In Anderson's retrospective collection, Going For Infinity: A Literary Journey (2002), the Time Patrol series was represented by "Death and the Knight" on the ground that the Templar anthology was probably less readily available by then. Thus, the entire Time Patrol series could be read in three different volumes by Anderson.

Finally, Time Patrol (2006) = The Time Patrol + "Death and the Knight." Time Patrol also reproduces Anderson's Introduction to the reprint of "Death and the Knight" in Going For Infinity. In that Introduction, Anderson states that:

most of the Time Patrol stories had appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction;

they were collected in The Time Patrol and The Shield Of Time;

then another story was written for Tales of the Knights Templar.

(Thus, we have the anomaly of Time Patrol referring to The Time Patrol.)

Anderson's account is not entirely accurate. Do we regard The Shield of Time as a single novel or as three connected stories? Let's go with the former description. In that case:

the series has eleven installments;
five appeared in FSF;
nine were collected in The Time Patrol;
The Shield of Time is not a collection, certainly not of previously published stories.

In any case, read Time Patrol and The Shield of Time for the complete Time Patrol series. And my advice is to read it after HG Wells' The Time Machine.

POVs In "The Year of the Ransom"

10 September 1987 Wanda Tamberly
3 June 1533 [Julian calendar] Castelar
15 April 1610 Stephen Tamberly
11 May 2937 B.C. Stephen Tamberly
3 November 1885 Manse Everard
30 October 1986 Wanda
11 May 2937 B.C. Stephen Tamberly
12 May 2937 B.C. Stephen Tamberly
22 July 1435 Wanda
22 May 1987 Wanda
23 May 1987 Everard
15 April 1610 Everard
24 May 1987 Everard
6 February 1536 [Julian calendar] Castelar
24 May 1987 Everard
18 August 2930 B.C. Stephen Tamberly
25 May 1987 Wanda

That really is quite complicated.

Between now and turning in, I return to Stieg Larsson.

Further Future Furniture II

(Regular blog commentator, Sean M. Brooks, hopes to rejoin us this coming Saturday or soon after.)

See:

Future Furniture
Further Future Furniture

"I sank deeper into my chair. Variable contours sought in vain to comfort me."
-Poul Anderson, "The Sorrow of Odin the Goth" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 333-465 AT 2319, p. 376.

"[The chair] fitted itself to his contours, to his every motion."
-"The Year of the Ransom," 15 April 1610, p. 659.

In The Shield Of Time, PART THREE, 31,275,389 B. C., Wanda Tamberly is a dinner guest in Faculty Lodge at the Time Patrol Academy. We expect to be told that the furniture is self-adjusting but we are not. Wanda's host, Guion, conducts her to a seat where she tries to loosen her muscles as she is being taught in phy ed. Maybe the higher echelons of the Patrol are above such things as self-adjusting furniture?

Crows And A Condor

"Overhead winged nest-bound crows and darting swallows, runes changeably scrawled on a sky gone purple in the east, cold green in the west. The evening star trembled into sight."
-"Star of the Sea," 10, p. 554.

I meant to close the quote after the crows but "runes" and "evening star" are also significant.

"A condor hovered aloft."
-"The Year of the Ransom," 15 April 1610, p. 655.

These birds are becoming ubiquitous. See A Condor Wheeled.

Foreshadowings

An author knows where his narrative is going as a first time reader does not.

"Heidhin grinned. 'I know the Romans better than you, my Edh.' Did she wince? He hastened on: 'I mean, I have dealt with them and theirs, I, a war chieftain. The goddess says little to you about such everyday things, does she?'"
-"Star of the Sea," 3, p. 499.

The reader does not yet know that Edh has been known by a group of Roman sailors.

"Eventually I may or may not make my dream of joining the research staff at Darwin Station. It can't take many scientists; or another dream could come along meanwhile and take me."
-Poul Anderson, "The Year of the Ransom" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 641-737 AT 10 September 1987, p. 642.

It will. She will join the Time Patrol and study more than fossils:

"Mammoths and cave bears and dodos, oh, my!"
-25 May 1987, p. 735.

Theron Ware says:

"'Marlowe to the contrary, misery does not love company.'
"'Baring his teeth, Baines said, 'We'll see about that.'"
-James Blish, Black Easter IN Blish After Such Knowledge (London, 1991), pp. 319-425 AT p. 336.

Baines will commission Ware to release the major demons from Hell without restraint for an entire night.

A Narrative Transition

On p. 640 of Time Patrol, we read the end of the prayer to Mary that concludes "Star of the Sea." On the facing page, we begin to read the opening section of "The Year of the Ransom," sub-headed 10 September 1987. This section is presented as a first person, present tense narration by a new character, Wanda Tamberly, so far not involved with any time travel. Wanda mentions her Uncle Steve who is a Time Patrolman although neither she nor we know that yet.

"Star of the Sea" is over 100 pages long whereas "The Year of the Ransom" is just under 100. We have come a long way from the shorter stories beginning and ending with Manse Everard although he always shows up.

My next project is to reread "Year of the Ransom," which has several changes of point of view.

Nehalennia

"Star of the Sea."

In III, the third of the four mythological sections, the hunter Gutherius has an adventure involving:

an old woman whom he takes to be the goddess, Nehalennia;

a hunting dog;

a ship.

Because of this adventure, he buys a ship and trades with Britain. Always enjoying fair weather and becoming wealthy, he raises an altar to Nehalennia, where he makes generous offerings, and always bows to the evening or morning star.

In 20, continuing the fictional narrative, Janne Floris tells Everard that, on the island of Walcheren, archaeologists have found stones with Latin inscriptions, thank offerings for safe voyages to Britain, and images of Nehalennia with a ship or a dog.

Mythology meets archaeology. 

Out Of The Unstable Space-Time Zone

(Check out August. I said that it might end with 220 posts but it ended with 225.)

"Star of the Sea," 20.

"...at last [events] were out of the unstable space-time zone and could safely be left to themselves." (p. 629)

If we compare a temporal interval to a spatial distance, then we must imagine not a three-dimensional universe changing internally while it moves along that distance (Why should it move? What would it move in relation to? If it moves, then its motion takes time, therefore time is not the distance that it moves along.) but a four-dimensional continuum extending in that direction. Merely to extend is not to flow like a river. If there is such a 4D continuum, then, in each 3D cross-section, conscious beings remember a succession of cross-sections in one direction but in the other. Memory gives such conscious beings an "arrow of time" but their "arrow" is like a static arrow symbol pointing in one direction, not like a real arrow flying through time.

CS Lewis refers to:

"...that place where those things remain that are taken off time's main road, behind the invisible hedges, into the unimaginable fields."
-CS Lewis, That Hideous Strength IN Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), pp. 349-753 AT CHAPTER 9, 559.

A road extends but travelers move along it. A fourth dimension, if there is one, extends but no one moves along it. If anyone did move in that direction, then their motion would take time, therefore the dimension moved along would not be time. There are realities beyond what we know. Lewis compares them to invisible hedges and unimaginable fields.