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Paratime Police
The Complete Paratime
From H. Beam Piper , the creator of the Terrohuman Future History and the bestselling Fuzzy novels, come the parallel worlds of Paratime —collected for the first time in one volume. Infinite worlds allowed for infinite evil—unless the doorway to those worlds was most carefully guarded. The Paratime Police are an elite force of men and women charged with defending a million unsuspecting Earths from their more developed—and more ruthless—neighbors in parallel continua. From the original Paratime , which introduced the unceasing struggles of the time-traveling heroes, to Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen , the last Paratime story of a state trooper’s conquest of an alternate Earth... The Complete Paratime is a grand science fiction experience.
424 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
42 people are currently reading
302 people want to read
About the author
H. Beam Piper
296 books242 followersHenry Beam Piper was an American science fiction author. He wrote many short stories and several novels. He is best known for his extensive Terro-Human Future History series of stories and a shorter series of "Paratime" alternate history tales.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
July 18, 2025
Пътуване във времето, паралелни светове и полиция, която да следи за реда при контактите между различните времеви цивилизации са сюжети, които са отлично поле за изява. Само дето Х. Бийм Пайпър е написал някои от най-досадните фантастични новели, които съм чел...
Доволно дълги, но затова пък натруфени, пълни с ненужна информация и локуми, със слабо изградени герои, абе ужас просто!
Съответно, няма да довърша този сборник.
Оценки за тези, които все пак прочетох:
"Докато обикаляше впряга" - 4*
Този разказ препрочетох случайно преди няколко седмици в Читанка, публикуван е някога в списание "Наука и техника". Алтернативна история на света, която ме заинтригува доста и ме накара да започна останалите разкази в този сборник. Той не е вързан много с тематиката им и се откроява ярко.
"Полицейска операция" - 3*
Кратък разказ за намеса в миналото, нищо особено.
"Последният враг" - 2*
Твърде многото политиканстване винаги досажда. Пайпър се е олял тук.
"Времепрестъпление" - 1*
Това е последния ковчег в пирона. Някакви робовладелци, пропуснат меден месец и безмерна скука!
Доволно дълги, но затова пък натруфени, пълни с ненужна информация и локуми, със слабо изградени герои, абе ужас просто!
Съответно, няма да довърша този сборник.
Оценки за тези, които все пак прочетох:
"Докато обикаляше впряга" - 4*
Този разказ препрочетох случайно преди няколко седмици в Читанка, публикуван е някога в списание "Наука и техника". Алтернативна история на света, която ме заинтригува доста и ме накара да започна останалите разкази в този сборник. Той не е вързан много с тематиката им и се откроява ярко.
"Полицейска операция" - 3*
Кратък разказ за намеса в миналото, нищо особено.
"Последният враг" - 2*
Твърде многото политиканстване винаги досажда. Пайпър се е олял тук.
"Времепрестъпление" - 1*
Това е последния ковчег в пирона. Някакви робовладелци, пропуснат меден месец и безмерна скука!
July 1, 2020
"The Complete Paratime" is a collection of stories of the Paratime Police. It includes all of H. Beam Piper's Paratime Police stories, arguably except for "Genesis" which doesn't deal directly with the Paratime Police, but is, instead, a story about the origin of humans on Level 4.
In "He Walked Around The Horses," Piper explores the mysterious disappearance of real-life British Diplomat Benjamin Bathurst in Germany during the Napoleonic Wars. While this is another story that does not deal directly with the Paratime Police, it is referred to a couple of times in Piper's succeeding Paratime Police stories.
The remaining stories (which include all of the Lord Kalvan Of Otherwhen stories) comprise the rest of Piper's Paratime Police stories.
Taken individually, most of the stories would probably be rated from 2 to 4 stars. But, as a whole, I would give "The Complete Paratime" a solid 5 Star rating. This is a case of the sum of the parts being greater than the whole.
These stories were all written between 1948 and 1965, and most appeared first in science fiction pulps and digests of the day. If you are one who gets hung up on stories that are somewhat dated, or do not like stories where technology in the story has become obsolete, you probably will not like this book. But if you are one who appreciates stories that are well-written and have good plot and character development, you are sure to enjoy "The Complete Paratime." And if you have previously read any of Piper's Paratime Police stories and enjoyed them, you definitely need to read this book.
In "He Walked Around The Horses," Piper explores the mysterious disappearance of real-life British Diplomat Benjamin Bathurst in Germany during the Napoleonic Wars. While this is another story that does not deal directly with the Paratime Police, it is referred to a couple of times in Piper's succeeding Paratime Police stories.
The remaining stories (which include all of the Lord Kalvan Of Otherwhen stories) comprise the rest of Piper's Paratime Police stories.
Taken individually, most of the stories would probably be rated from 2 to 4 stars. But, as a whole, I would give "The Complete Paratime" a solid 5 Star rating. This is a case of the sum of the parts being greater than the whole.
These stories were all written between 1948 and 1965, and most appeared first in science fiction pulps and digests of the day. If you are one who gets hung up on stories that are somewhat dated, or do not like stories where technology in the story has become obsolete, you probably will not like this book. But if you are one who appreciates stories that are well-written and have good plot and character development, you are sure to enjoy "The Complete Paratime." And if you have previously read any of Piper's Paratime Police stories and enjoyed them, you definitely need to read this book.
July 10, 2010
He-Man/Nerd Space Fantasy stories. Similar to Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series, but not quite as good. Here, they're jumping across 5 main alternate timelines, not up and down in time.
November 11, 2013
OK, some of the short stories are a little dated but they give the context to Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, surely one of the most splendid science fiction novels ever written.
January 3, 2016
Great book of alternate universes and adventure. H. Beam Piper created an incredible and interesting group of alternate earths to play in. Now it makes me want to do a GURPS Infinite Earths game.
May 21, 2016
Интересна книжка, поставяща интересен поглед върху паралелната реалност ... увлекателна ... и забавна.
January 22, 2019
An enjoyable collection of inter-time traveling police and the timelines that they visit. I found the shorter stories (i.e. "He Walked Around the Horses") to be more entertaining than the longer ones (i.e. "Temple Trouble"), which may be due to the style that they were written over fifty years ago.
Piper certainly had a great grasp of the world that he created, and allows his characters lots of room in it. Sometimes too much for my liking. Overall, I enjoyed it enough to read more of his published work.
Piper certainly had a great grasp of the world that he created, and allows his characters lots of room in it. Sometimes too much for my liking. Overall, I enjoyed it enough to read more of his published work.
December 2, 2024
Четеше ми се нещо за паралелни светове, по-човешки написано от последното, което четох по темата. Това съвпадна с желанието ми все пак да се сещам отвреме-навреме за амбициозния си план да изчета цялата избрана фантастика на Бард.
Е, по-човешки е написана, но е пълна с излишна информация и разтягане на локуми. Това бих го преглътнала, но истината е, че е безумно скучна.
Е, по-човешки е написана, но е пълна с излишна информация и разтягане на локуми. Това бих го преглътнала, но истината е, че е безумно скучна.
February 12, 2019
An excellent series of short stories about travel not forward or backward through time, but sideways--to universes that are the result of different outcomes of events in the near or distant. Most deal with the society that is able to do this travel and efforts to police these actions.
July 18, 2008
well ok when i read these it was in three differnt books. lord kalvin of otherwhen, little fuzzy and Paratime.
each a different type of sci fi.
Paratime is a set of stories involving Verkan Val a paratime police officer. it seems on the main "prime" time line human science is extremely advanced and they have developed the ability to travel in time. However they can not travel forward and backward, but parallel travel across different time lines is possible.
so in some cases the world developed similar to the prime timeline however they have not discovered the secret of paratime travel. in other cases the world is undeveloped and there is no humans at all.
it is the job of verkan val and his paratime police to make sure these time lines are not exploited.
in lord Kalvin a state trooper from 1960s pennsylvania is hunting a fugitive when he is accidentally kidnapped by a time car run by a paratime cop. kalvin shoots the cop and rolls out of the car into another world, well another time line anyway. he is still in pennsylvania, and its still 1960, but the people are different. thier tech level is that of the 1650s. there is a series of religions set up all fighting a war against the people that adopt kalvin. he, knowing the secret of gunpowder, breaks the gunpowder monopoly of styphon house, the main enemy.
this has a sequel called the great kings war, however the copy my father had was lost before i could read it and i have never seen a copy anywhere else.
little fuzzy i read a long long time ago, and only once. i dont recall liking it much, at least not as much as lord kalvin
each a different type of sci fi.
Paratime is a set of stories involving Verkan Val a paratime police officer. it seems on the main "prime" time line human science is extremely advanced and they have developed the ability to travel in time. However they can not travel forward and backward, but parallel travel across different time lines is possible.
so in some cases the world developed similar to the prime timeline however they have not discovered the secret of paratime travel. in other cases the world is undeveloped and there is no humans at all.
it is the job of verkan val and his paratime police to make sure these time lines are not exploited.
in lord Kalvin a state trooper from 1960s pennsylvania is hunting a fugitive when he is accidentally kidnapped by a time car run by a paratime cop. kalvin shoots the cop and rolls out of the car into another world, well another time line anyway. he is still in pennsylvania, and its still 1960, but the people are different. thier tech level is that of the 1650s. there is a series of religions set up all fighting a war against the people that adopt kalvin. he, knowing the secret of gunpowder, breaks the gunpowder monopoly of styphon house, the main enemy.
this has a sequel called the great kings war, however the copy my father had was lost before i could read it and i have never seen a copy anywhere else.
little fuzzy i read a long long time ago, and only once. i dont recall liking it much, at least not as much as lord kalvin
July 24, 2016
I first met H. Beam Piper in the pages of Analog, the science-fiction magazine, in the mid-'60's. The 3 installments of the Pennsylvania State Trooper series are in this volume and their merit as storytelling is obvious.
This volume re-unites those three stories about Corporal Calvin Morrison, later Lord Kalvan, who but for the sideways time travel aspect is pretty much in a late medieval story, albeit in the Susquehanna River country of Pennsylvania -- at, least, in this new time-line.
Other (non-Kalvan) stories in this volume are an undiscovered joy, notably the first, "He Walked Around the Horses," which is one of the best SF short stories of this genre I've seen -- indeed, worthy of an Ursula LeGuin in its plotting and concept.
And it is an original concept: _lateral_ time travel, in which multiple histories exist on parallel timelines. So it can be that someone from modern Pennsylvania -- Cpl. Morrison of the Pennsylvania State Police -- winds up in a timeline in which the Aryan peoples migrated east across Asia and the Pacific rather than west into Europe, and now are a civilization roughly equal to Europe ca. the Thirty Years' War. The Pennsylvania scenery may be the same for Calvin Morrison, but the kingdoms may not be -- especially as the dominant religion has monopolized the formula for gunpowder. Monitoring all these timelines is a more-advanced civilization on a more-advanced timeline, with Paratime Police to monitor any cross-time incidents, and who take a skeptical interest in Kalvan's new adventures.
This author was a master, really, and we shall not see his like again anytime soon.
This volume re-unites those three stories about Corporal Calvin Morrison, later Lord Kalvan, who but for the sideways time travel aspect is pretty much in a late medieval story, albeit in the Susquehanna River country of Pennsylvania -- at, least, in this new time-line.
Other (non-Kalvan) stories in this volume are an undiscovered joy, notably the first, "He Walked Around the Horses," which is one of the best SF short stories of this genre I've seen -- indeed, worthy of an Ursula LeGuin in its plotting and concept.
And it is an original concept: _lateral_ time travel, in which multiple histories exist on parallel timelines. So it can be that someone from modern Pennsylvania -- Cpl. Morrison of the Pennsylvania State Police -- winds up in a timeline in which the Aryan peoples migrated east across Asia and the Pacific rather than west into Europe, and now are a civilization roughly equal to Europe ca. the Thirty Years' War. The Pennsylvania scenery may be the same for Calvin Morrison, but the kingdoms may not be -- especially as the dominant religion has monopolized the formula for gunpowder. Monitoring all these timelines is a more-advanced civilization on a more-advanced timeline, with Paratime Police to monitor any cross-time incidents, and who take a skeptical interest in Kalvan's new adventures.
This author was a master, really, and we shall not see his like again anytime soon.
January 6, 2008
A series of short stories from science fiction write H. Beam Piper, all set in the Paratime universe in which an advanced race of beings has worked out how to travel across parallel universes in order to obtain various resources and trade profit from the residents thereof. Not a lot of complexity to the stories, but they are very enjoyable all the same and provide an interesting spin on the age-old time travel theme.
June 25, 2010
A masterpiece. Alternate realities taken to the scientific level, with explanations of how and why, and divided into sets. Unlike most alternate-reality books, it is not one or two teenage characters who happens to stumble though a gap in reality, but an entire civilization that discovers the existence of other realities and with them, a limitless source of resources. Unlike anything I've read before or since.
April 16, 2013
I am not normally a fan of short story collections, but this is a good one. Because I love "the Fuzzy Papers" my brother recommended this to me. It has been so fun to read. Wish Piper had written more.
It always cracks me up to read sci-fi from the 50's. Everyone smokes, and they use a lot of high tech tapes. It's fun.
It always cracks me up to read sci-fi from the 50's. Everyone smokes, and they use a lot of high tech tapes. It's fun.
September 9, 2012
Very good approach to alternative dimensions. All stories are independent but with the same few characters, the heads of the paratime police, responsible to keep order and the secret of paratime transposition on all timelines.
January 26, 2018
Not my cup of tea. Very pulpy writing. Alternate histories, parallel worlds, ... OK, so? I guess this is one of these things where there's some credit due for being an early creator of these concepts.
June 28, 2008
H. Beam Piper could teach today's authors of bloated science fiction epics a thing or two, with his intricate working out of the society Paratime operations run out of and an ear for nuance.
May 13, 2012
Piper's paratime books are good reads.. bit dated in some ways but still OK
December 16, 2012
Every Paratime story, collected in one place...and it all falls into place amazingly. Piper, we lost you far too soon!
April 7, 2017
This book included the origins of Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen and was the whole purpose of my reading it. Kalvan was the main protagonist of 'The Great Kings' War'. It was gratifying to finally, after so many years, read the original story of one of my favorite characters.
I can't go into detail about the story without giving the plot away, but suffice it to say that it explained a lot I had only guessed at before. The tale was entertaining and full of the middle-age type warfare and action I've always enjoyed.
I can't go into detail about the story without giving the plot away, but suffice it to say that it explained a lot I had only guessed at before. The tale was entertaining and full of the middle-age type warfare and action I've always enjoyed.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews