Marco Polo And Extratemporal Encounters In At Least Four Timelines

Some sources:

Poul Anderson, "The Only Game in Town" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 129-171.

Neil Gaiman, "Soft Places" IN Gaiman, The Sandman: Fables And Reflections (New York), pp. 124-148.

Doctor Who, during the period of the first Doctor.

Section 2 of "The Only Game in Town" begins:

"Anno Domini One Thousand Two Hundred Eighty:..." (p. 133)

- then tells us what Kublai Khan, Marco Polo and several others, including two Time Patrolmen, were doing in that year.

"Soft Places" begins:

"Anno Domini 1273.

"A sense of mounting panic rises in Marco's chest." (p. 125, panels 1-2.)

 

- then shows us Marco Polo's encounters with people from other times.

 

Marco did not record his meeting with the Doctor because he thought that time travel would not be believed.

 

I have read one other work that concluded with an extratemporal encounter with Marco but remember neither title nor author's name. The text ended:

 

"Mar. Co. Po. Lo. A strange name in a strange tongue."  

Marco Polo And Time Travelers

In 1280 A.D.:

Kublai Khan welcomes any guests who bring new knowledge or philosophy;

these include the Venetian merchant, Marco Polo;

there are revolutionary secret societies in Cathay;

Japan has repelled one Mongol invasion;

other important events occur, too numerous to recount here. My source for this information is:

Poul Anderson, "The Only Game in Town" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 129-171 AT p. 133.

After "August," (see also here) Neil Gaiman's Fables And Reflections collects "Soft Places," Gaiman's account of Marco Polo's passage through the Desert of Lop where Marco meets people from his future. In Doctor Who, Marco met the Doctor but did not mention time travel in his memoirs because he thought that it would not be believed.

In "Soft Places," it is suggested that it was the explorers like Marco that froze the world into rigid patterns. See Anti-Magic.

The End Of Faerie

In Another Tale, we quoted Poul Anderson as saying that what became of faery was another tale and Neil Gaiman's Auberon as saying that Gaia no longer welcomes fairies. In the combox, Sean commented that Anderson's The Merman's Children presented hints about the end of Faery. In Anti-Magic, we summarized this theme in The Merman's Children and also mentioned the same theme in a work by Neil Gaiman. In Gaimain's "Soft Places," the dream vicinity, Fiddler's Green, having taken the form of GK Chesterton, informs Marco Polo that, in the soft places, dreamed and real geographies overlap but that nowadays there are less such places because Marco and other explorers:

"...froze the world into rigid patterns." (p. 140, panel 6)

See also Marco Polo And Time Travelers.

Anderson And Gaiman: Eight Comparisons

We have compared the works of Poul Anderson with those of Neil Gaiman.

(i) The Old Phoenix and the Inn of the Worlds' End.

(ii) A Midsummer Tempest and the Sandman stories, "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "The Tempest."

(iii) Time travel to the time of Marco Polo in the Time Patrol story, "The Only Game In Town," and Marco Polo meeting people from later times in the Sandman story, "Soft Places."

(iv) A speculation in Anderson's "The Discovery of the Past" and the Sandman story, "August."

(v) Odin as a fictional character.

(vi) Retellings of the myth of Orpheus.

(vii) "A Feast for the Gods" (with Karen Anderson) and American Gods.

(viii) Funerary rites in The People Of The Wind and in the Sandman story, "Cerements."

(We have not done (viii) yet but we will next.)

Poul Anderson And Neil Gaiman

In Poul Anderson's "The Only Game In Town," the Time Patrol must prevent the Mongol invasion of North America. Kublai Khan and Marco Polo are mentioned. Rereading that reminded me of Neil Gaiman's Sandman story about Marco Polo.

There are other parallels. In The Sandman, Shakespeare writes A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest for Morpheus. Anderson wrote A Midsummer Tempest about a parallel Earth where Shakespeare was the Great Historian, not a great dramatist, thus his characters really existed. That novel features Anderson's inn between the worlds where characters from different universes and fictions meet, as in Gaiman's Inn of the Worlds' End.

Anderson imagines a Roman in the reign of Augustus who speculates that the Empire might either conquer the whole world or, as then current policy suggested, stay approximately as it was. Gaiman shows us Augustus formulating the latter policy and tells us why he did it.

Both quote James Elroy Flecker, including "...the Golden Road to Samarkand." Anderson refers to and quotes Kipling. Gaiman described his Sandman story, "Hob's Leviathan" as "...me doing Kipling..." Kipling has an Indian Prime Minister who becomes a mendicant. "Hob's Leviathan" has an Indian king who becomes a mendicant.

After Acre

(Acre, Israel.)

Rogue Sword, CHAPTER I.

After losing Acre and the rest of the "Holy Land," the Hospitallers, like the Templars, had found refuge with the Frankish King of Cyprus.

Lucas, arriving in Constantinople from Trebizond but bound for Negroponte, engages a place on one of the many galleys that are filling the Golden Horn in order to avoid the war on the Sea of Marmora between Byzantium and a company of mercenaries holding Gallipoli.

Hugh has met Marco Polo. (So did the Doctor in Doctor Who but Marco did not write about time travel because no one would have believed it.) Lucas heard of Marco:

"'...at the court of the Kha Khan in Cambaluc...'" (p. 29)

We begin to recognize and remember some of the geography as we proceed through Poul Anderson's historical novels.

Perspectives In Rogue Sword

In Poul Anderson's Rogue Sword (New York, 1960), the introductory Author's Note states that the main source of information about the Grand Catalan Company is a chronicle by Company member, Ramon Muntaner.

Muntaner is a character in the novel so the novel's hero, Lucas, knows this Muntaner and even fights alongside him. A reader of historical fiction once told me that he disliked the incorporation of historical figures into such fictions. I cannot think why. Surely nothing is more satisfying than reading about a fictitious character's conversations and interactions with individuals who are known to have had a historical existence?

Anderson refers to Marco Polo twice, in the Time Patrol story, "The Only Game In Town," and in the historical novel, Rogue Sword, but I don't think he brings Polo on stage anywhere?

The first three pages of Chapter XI, like some passages in the Time Patrol story, "Star Of The Sea," simply inform us of historical facts, mainly who fought whom then and with what result. The combatants include Muntaner and this purely historical passage ends with a quotation from his chronicle:

"And I have told you this fine adventure in order that you should all understand that it was due to nothing but the power of God, and that this was not done through our worth but by the virtue and grace of God." (p. 160)

The very next paragraph begins:

"That was the only warlike action Lucas saw during this time." (p. 160)

- so we are back in the historical fiction. But fiction is about life. At the end, Lucas (and the author) reflects:

"If a man is fortunate, there are a few pure moments in his life. They do not last; the doubts and fears, guilt, loneliness, and all the grubby little weaknesses return; but he has had those moments and knows life is joyous." (p. 283)

I am preparing a talk on Zen meditation and this is one of the points that I want to make.

Cross-Temporal Cheese Cake

Life is immediately experienced, then fictionally reflected. Thus, after eating cheese cake with ice cream in the Spaghetti House, I speculated about restaurants in Gotham City, the Solar Commonwealth and Archopolis. See Restaurants. I was reminded of this when Mikael Blomkvist and his colleagues ate cheesecake decorated with raspberry ice cream in Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Played With Fire.

Poul Anderson fans should also read:

Larsson's contemporary high tech Scandinavian thrillers;

SM Stirling's alternative histories (with their many "foodie" moments);

Neil Gaiman's The Sandman graphic novels with their Inn of the Worlds' End, William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Oberon and Titania, fairy gold, immortal Englishman, Augustus Caesar, Odin, Thor, Loki, Hell, Marco Polo etc.

Years

Some years are significant to everyone: 1914; 1918; 1939; 1945; 1969. Every year is significant to someone. For example, everyone was born in a particular year. An sf writer should not only tell us that his characters have time travelled from 1980 to 1280 but also encapsulate what was happening in those years. Thus, when Manse Everard and John Sandoval arrive in:

"Anno Domini One Thousand Two Hundred Eighty:..."

-Poul Anderson, "The Only Game in Town" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 129-171 AT 2, p. 133 -

- Anderson spends three quarters of a page summarizing facts about Kublai Khan, Marco Polo, Cathay, Japan, the Hojo family, Bhaghdad, Cairo, Delhi, Pope Nicholas III, Guelphs and Ghibellines in Italy, Emperor Rudolf of Habsburg, King Philip of France, King Edward of England, Dante, Duns Scotus, Roger Bacon and Thomas the Rhymer.

I was reminded of this when Alan Moore's characters travelled from 1985 to:

"FEBRUARY THE TWELFTH, 1963, KENNEDY is in the White House. MACMILLAN is in Downing Street, TELSTAR is in orbit..."

- and:

"FEBRUARY 4TH, 1982, and the world does not rest easy. Many miles below there is SUFFERING and UNREST. There is IRAN, POLAND, NORTHERN IRELAND..."

- Miracleman # 2 (New York, 2014), p. 15, panel 1, p. 18, panel 1.

Different years.

The Past In The Time Patrol Series: 1280 A.D.

Kublai Khan

Marco Polo

anti-Kublai revolutionary societies

Hojo family in Japan

Mongols unified only in theory

Russian princes

the Il-Khan Abaka in Baghdad

the Abbasid Caliphate in Cairo

Slave Dynasty in Delhi

Pope Nicholas III

Guelphs and Ghibellines in Italy

German Emperor Rudolph of Habsburg

French King Philip the Bold

English King Edward Longshanks

Dante Alighieri

Joannes Duns Scotus

Roger Bacon

Thomas the Rhymer

A Ming revolt will expel the Mongols. For Roger Bacon, read James Blish's Doctor Mirabilis. I admit to not knowing much about most of the items on this list. However, we now have the technology that Manse Everard encountered in the Time Patrol Academy in the Oligocene and thought could be expected by about 2000 A.D.:

"...screens which could draw on a huge library of recorded sight and sound for entertainment."

-Poul Anderson, "Time Patrol" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 1-53 AT 2, p. 8.

- for entertainment and information.

Time Travellers And Famous People

"Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks."

Manse Everard has an interview with King Hiram of Tyre. What happens when time travellers meet famous people? Different things. Keith Denison is Cyrus the Great in one timeline.

The Doctor met:

Henry VIII who threw (I can't remember what) at him which the Doctor threw back and was sent to the Tower - where the TARDIS was concealed;

Marco Polo who decided not to write about journeys through time because that would not be believed;

Winston Churchill, but they already knew each other whether from a previous episode or from an incident between episodes;

Queen Victoria who founded an organization to defend the British Empire against threats either extraterrestrial or supernatural.

OK. A trivial introduction to a big topic before going out for the evening.

Our Fantastic Past

Fantastic events occurred long ago but were not recorded or are not understood. Marco Polo did not record his meetings with the Doctor (Doctor Who) because they would not be believed. A clever TV adaptation of The First Men In The Moon squared Cavor and Bedford with Armstrong and Aldrin.

In Poul Anderson's Works
Many events in the Time Patrol timeline are down to the presence of time travelers.

In another time travel scenario, an anachronistic galleon sailed near Atlantis but was destroyed.

In Poul and Karen Anderson's The King Of Ys
Julius Caesar did not record his visit to Ys.

Niall of the Nine Hostages felt obliged to destroy Ys in revenge for his son and fleet but was not proud of the underhand means that he had had to use so he forbade people to talk about it and poets to celebrate it. The flooding of Ys will become at most a folk tale without Niall's name attached to it. So it is.

We want fiction often to be fantastic and usually also to be consistent with the known facts.

Anderson And Gaiman

I have finished rereading Poul Anderson's The Day Of Their Return and am not about to start rereading his Captain Flandry series at 11:30 p.m. Since it is this time of night, I will simply list the parallels that I can remember between Poul Anderson and Neil Gaiman although this time without documenting them (but they are to be found on the blog):

Emperor Norton
Mark Twain
Caesar Augustus and the decline of the Roman Empire
Marco Polo
Orpheus
A Midsummer Night's Dream
The Tempest
time travel
an inter-universal inn
James Elroy Flecker
Rudyard Kipling
immortals
Hell, demons and the Adversary
the withdrawal of Faerie from Earth
something I have forgotten

The Two Other State Of The World Summaries

In History Lesson II, I mentioned two other state of the world summaries. Now I learn that they have already been summarized, one twice, as follows:

Marco Polo And Time Travelers

1280 AD

69-70 AD 

 

So that completes that line of thought and we can return to the text of The Shield Of Time in the next post.

 

(Real life has also been getting in the way of blogging but we persevere.)

Forgetting

The Demon Of Scattery.

"Whatever happens, no man of the Church will ever chronicle the heathen doings on this holy isle. The great bones will be sunk in the river, and later generations will forget." (p. 188)

Yet another explanation of how fantastic events could have happened in the past but not be known about now. The city of Ys was under an occult Veil and its chief enemy not only caused the city to be inundated but then systematically demolished even the ruins so that not even a memory would remain. Marco Polo met Doctor Who but did not record it because he thought that no one would believe it.

A Christian widow's curse makes it impossible for Brigit to remain in Ireland so she leaves with Halldor. Happy ending - except maybe for readers who think that she should have remained Christian? We can see how Mananaan got involved but I still don't see how Skafloc's kindred were there.

The end of the framing device is brilliant. Mananaan says:

"'Beware, my friend, of calling upon the unknown. The answer is apt to be endless.'
"Their boat sailed on into the dark." (p. 193)

The unknown, the endless and the dark.

Next: The Merman's Children.

1280 AD

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

In 1280 AD:

Kublai Khan was the Great Khan of the Mongol Empire;

he had been visited by Marco Polo;

there were revolutionary secret societies in Cathay;

 

Japan had repelled a Mongol invasion;

 

Russian princes collected taxes for the Golden Horde, the northwestern sector of the Empire;

 

the Il-Khan Abaka, at war with the Golden Horde, ruled in Baghdad;

 

the Abbasid Caliphate had been driven from Baghdad to Cairo;

 

the Muslim Slave Dynasty ruled in Delhi;

 

Nicholas III was Pope;

 

Guelphs and Ghibellines were in conflict in Italy;

 

Edward I was King of England;

 

Rudolf I was King of Germany;

 

Philip the Bold was King of France;

 

Dante, Duns Scotus, Roger Bacon and Thomas Rhymer were alive;

 

the Yuan milieu HQ of the Time Patrol was in Peking, as is the 1850-2000 Asian milieu HQ;

Manson Everard and John Sandoval of the Patrol watched a Mongol expedition advancing through North America.

Poul Anderson presents all of this background information, which I have checked on google (I am not sure that Philip the Bold's titles included "King"?), before describing how Everard and Sandoval interact with the expedition, which they must prevent from returning to China.