Thursday 11 October 2012

The Three BC

I have reread The Dancer From Atlantis, am rereading Conan The Rebel and will reread The Golden Slave. These are Poul Anderson's three novels set BC:

Conan The Rebel (heroic fantasy), past events and supernatural beings;
The Dancer From Atlantis (science fiction), past events and future technology;
The Golden Slave (historical fiction), past events and the origins of myths.

Next to be reread might be the three novels set in the fourteenth century:

The Merman's Children (historical fantasy), past events and supernatural beings;
The High Crusade (science fiction), past events and extraterrestrial technology;
Rogue Sword (historical fiction), past events.

A single long novel covering these themes, except the supernatural, is:

The Boat Of A Million Years (historical fiction and science fiction): past, present and future events and a mutation.

Anderson smuggles science fiction into the past via time travel, an early alien invasion and immortality. His works give the impression of systematically covering every possible implication of an idea as if they had been preplanned with this purpose in mind.

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