Wednesday 19 March 2014

Rich And Colorful

I have been determined to continue posting about Poul Anderson's The Corridors Of Time as long as I was able to find new things to say. I have probably reached a limit by now but I am amazed at how much there has been. I never expected to follow the course of Lockridge's morning walk through Copenhagen or of his and Storm's car journey through Denmark.

Careful rereading of relevant passages discloses the intricacy and subtlety of the temporal journeys, time war and causal paradoxes. The Warden and Ranger realms and their single successor are briefly but fully realized as are the philosophical conflict between Wardens and Rangers and its place in the history of religion. The main past period in the narrative is the early second millennium BC but there are also vivid glimpses of the seventh and sixteenth centuries.

Superficially a mere action-adventure novel with heroes and villains fighting through history, The Corridors Of Time turns out to be one of it's author's richest and most colorful science fiction narratives.

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