Thursday 15 September 2016

Poul Anderson's Series

When discussing time travel fiction by other writers, Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series is an endless source of quotations and comparisons. In the previous post, a reference to slaves in SM Stirling's Against The Tide Of Time led to a summary of this theme in Anderson's first two future history series and in his Time Patrol series.

The Time Patrol series covers Manson Everard's career from unemployed engineer to senior Unattached agent of the Time Patrol just as Anderson's Dominic Flandry series covers Flandry's career from Ensign to Fleet Admiral and Poul and Karen Anderson's The King Of Ys covers Gratillonius' career from Roman centurion on Hadrian's Wall to respected senior statesman in post-Roman France.

In fact, Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, incorporating his Flandry series, presents the human race from explorers of the Solar System to colonists of several spiral arms whereas his Psychotechnic History presents the human race from post-World War III partisans to Galactic Center dwellers with artificially enhanced brains able to control cosmic energy and to propel their bodies across interstellar distances.

And, if any blog readers have not read these works, then I strongly urge them to do so.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I agree with what you said about Flandry. I would have added that by the time of A STONE IN HEAVEN he had not only risen to become an admiral but also an adviser to the Emperors themselves. So much so that Flandry even wondered if he would end up as a "grey eminence" behind the throne.

The only thing I disagree with about your comments on Anderson's Psychotechnic History is including "The Chapter Ends" in that series. My view is that story is too DIFFERENT from the undisputed Psychotechnic stories to be plausibly included among them. I still think it was probably Sandra Miesel who decided to include that story in the series. "The Chapter Ends" should be understood as a non-series one off story.