Time Patrol And Island In The Sea Of Time II

We already knew that Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series was a rich and dense work. Now I find that it generates endless quotations and comparisons when discussing SM Stirling's substantial time travel novel, Island In The Sea Of Time (New York, 1998).

"...it is another myth that primitive man lives in harmonious balance with the life around him." (Anderson, The Shield Of Time, p. 234)

"'...people have never lived in harmony with nature. Goats and axes and wooden plows can ruin countries every bit as surely as bulldozers and chemical plants; it just takes a little longer.'" (Island..., p. 244)

"'Earth was a planet fit for gods, unbelievable, before civilization mucked it up.'" (The Shield..., p. 100)

If we had a second chance, would we muck it up again? Arnstein, who said (above) that people have never lived in harmony with nature, continues:

"'We've got three thousand years of knowledge to apply to a fresh world. Let's do it right this time.'" (Island..., p. 244)

Stirling's characters debate the issue. When Arnstein argues that seven thousand people need trade, not just subsistence farming, to preserve civilization, Ms Lisketter replies:

"'There's nothing wrong with a simple life! We should all learn to lower our expectations and walk lightly on the earth, not kill its whales and cut down its trees and... We've got an opportunity to escape from a culture dominated by machines, and cultivate our skills and the spiritual -'
"A chorus of whistles, catcalls and boos shouted her down. 'I've had all the fucking simple-life blisters I want or need!' someone shouted, and there was a roar of approval." (pp. 242-243)

The debate continues. We need a culture that uses machines without being dominated by them.

A sufficiently small population of temporal exiles might have agreed to the collective discipline of not having children, thus:

enjoying life as long as they all shall live;
not having to make any provision for future generations;
minimizing their impact on the past.

However, in a population of seven thousand, human life continues. The debate is necessary.

A Bright Cool Day

"It was a bright cool day, the air smelling..." (SM Stirling, On The Oceans Of Eternity, Chapter Fourteen, p. 302)

Three senses in only part of a sentence!

"...of damp earth and the not-too-distant sea; the grass was green, starred with some winter flowers." (ibid.)

Even better:
two contrasting smells, earth and sea;
at least two colors, green grass and unspecified flowers.

The point, however, is to contrast this natural beauty with human activity:

"It would have been a beautiful country, if war had not come by; plumes of smoke scarred the sky..." (ibid.)

Also there is "...an acrid smell of ash..." (ibid.)

Elsewhere, Poul Anderson's Manse Everard remarks:

"'Earth was a planet fit for gods, unbelievable, before civilization mucked it up.'"
-Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), p. 100.

It can be fit again and our descendants can be the gods.

Nature And Humanity

"The wrangling...went on interminably. Everard glared out the window, into the prehuman night, and wondered if the sabretooths weren't doing a better job after all than their simian successors."
-Poul Anderson, Time Patrol (New York, 2006), p. 221)

"Earth was a planet fit for gods, unbelievable, before civilization mucked it up."
-Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), p. 100.

"'Are you telling me, gentlemen, that there is nothing we can do to rid our world of these murderous vermin?'"
-Jerry Pournelle and SM Stirling, The Prince (New York, 2002), p. 875.

Crown Prince Alexander asks this on a rainy spring day when the breeze brings odors of wet vegetation from the gardens and a damp salty odor from the nearby Aegean Sea (on Sparta, not on Earth).

Some Spartans would be able to appreciate the spring, the gardens and the sea without being troubled by politics - or they might be killed in a terrorist attack. How can humanity combine appreciation of natural beauty with resolution of social conflicts?

Unpolluted Planets

Parallels between the Time Patrol and the Technic History are always satisfying. Here is another. Time travelers visit pre-civilized Earth. Space travelers visit uncivilized planets.

"'Earth was a planet fit for gods, unbelievable, before civilization mucked it up.'"
-Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), Part Two, p. 100.

On the extra-solar planet, Dido, Dominic Flandry, flying along a coast with a one-person gravity impeller:

savors wind and salt smells;
sees waves, foam, floating weed, swimming animals, a rainstorm, beaches, woods, meadows, grazers and flyers;
thinks, "By and large...planets do well if man lets them be."
-Poul Anderson, The Rebel Worlds IN Anderson, Young Flandry (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 367-520 AT Chapter Thirteen, p. 491.