Tuesday 14 November 2017

An Ideal Crossover

OK. You know how it is. It is getting late, with family responsibilities tomorrow morning, and I ought to close the lap top soon. I also need a rest from reading sf so I am again rereading parts of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, Volume II. I have compared Larsson with Poul Anderson before:

a series of three long novels;

 Scandinavian author and setting;
 
a gripping political thriller soundly based in contemporary Sweden;
 
computer technology that reads like sf;
 
the shadow of World War II still present decades later;
 
abundant details about fictional characters and Swedish localities;

security services that (as we Anderson fans know) must include some Swedish Time Patrol members.

I find it very easy to imagine that the Time Patrol is present although concealed from the Swedish population and also unfortunately from the readers of the novel. An ideal crossover would be one in which we were able to glimpse Everard, without any mention of his Time Patrol membership, in a Larsson novel and Blomkvist the journalist in an Anderson novel. It is very easy to imagine just a few extra sentences that would make these connections without compromising the integrity of either series.

Sf group tomorrow night, Bentham Grammar School Association annual dinner on Friday evening, Lancaster Green Fair on Saturday and a day out with a friend on Sunday. Meanwhile, probably more blogging.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

We do see Poul Anderson at least alluding to himself in THERE WILL BE TIME. His alleged cousin "Robert Anderson" mentions reading the Maurai stories PA wrote. And the POV character in the "framework" and the narrator of the last story in TALES OF THE FLYING MOUNTAINS was a pseudonym used by Anderson. And I think the narrator of the Old Phoenix stories also Anderson.

Sean