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Maurai
There Will Be Time / The Dancer from Atlantis
Jack Havig, a man born with the ability to move at will through the past and the future of mankind, must save the world from a doomed future of tyranny before his time runs out. Reprint.
Mass Market Paperback
First published September 1, 1972
346 people are currently reading
1539 people want to read
About the author
Poul Anderson
1,620 books1,102 followersPseudonym A. A. Craig, Michael Karageorge, Winston P. Sanders, P. A. Kingsley.
Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards.
Anderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1948. He married Karen Kruse in 1953. They had one daughter, Astrid, who is married to science fiction author Greg Bear. Anderson was the sixth President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, taking office in 1972. He was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America, a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. Robert A. Heinlein dedicated his 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls to Anderson and eight of the other members of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy.[2][3]
Poul Anderson died of cancer on July 31, 2001, after a month in the hospital. Several of his novels were published posthumously.
Series:
* Time Patrol
* Psychotechnic League
* Trygve Yamamura
* Harvest of Stars
* King of Ys
* Last Viking
* Hoka
* Future history of the Polesotechnic League
* Flandry
Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards.
Anderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1948. He married Karen Kruse in 1953. They had one daughter, Astrid, who is married to science fiction author Greg Bear. Anderson was the sixth President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, taking office in 1972. He was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America, a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. Robert A. Heinlein dedicated his 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls to Anderson and eight of the other members of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy.[2][3]
Poul Anderson died of cancer on July 31, 2001, after a month in the hospital. Several of his novels were published posthumously.
Series:
* Time Patrol
* Psychotechnic League
* Trygve Yamamura
* Harvest of Stars
* King of Ys
* Last Viking
* Hoka
* Future history of the Polesotechnic League
* Flandry
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 119 reviews
July 27, 2017
Poul Anderson’s 1973 novel There Will Be Time demonstrates brilliantly how his works can be divided into three main categories: science fiction, fantasy and time travel.
Normally, time travel books can be considered as a sub-genre of science fiction, but here, more than in the
Time Patrol stories or in The Corridors of Time, Anderson shows that it is a viable medium in its own right that actually combines elements of science fiction, fantasy and historical fiction into a seamless and entertaining whole.
The author uses time travel as a vehicle to examine and explore what is best and worst in ourselves and with the understanding that societies evolve and collapse just as natural forces grow and die. Anderson was an intelligent, thoughtful observer of human nature, society, cultures and anthropology and his works are dazzling with the light of an energetic and curious modern mind.
Modern authors would also do well to consider his style as There Will Be Time is lean and muscular at 176 pages compared with the commercially bloated tomes of much current fiction. Anderson fans will also enjoy a brief, self-disparaging cameo in his own book. This is a very good story, one of his better books.
Normally, time travel books can be considered as a sub-genre of science fiction, but here, more than in the
Time Patrol stories or in The Corridors of Time, Anderson shows that it is a viable medium in its own right that actually combines elements of science fiction, fantasy and historical fiction into a seamless and entertaining whole.
The author uses time travel as a vehicle to examine and explore what is best and worst in ourselves and with the understanding that societies evolve and collapse just as natural forces grow and die. Anderson was an intelligent, thoughtful observer of human nature, society, cultures and anthropology and his works are dazzling with the light of an energetic and curious modern mind.
Modern authors would also do well to consider his style as There Will Be Time is lean and muscular at 176 pages compared with the commercially bloated tomes of much current fiction. Anderson fans will also enjoy a brief, self-disparaging cameo in his own book. This is a very good story, one of his better books.
August 18, 2025
A second chance to make a first impression!
Like the novels of so many of his stellar peers from that 20th century golden age of science fiction - Clifford D Simak, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, Robert Heinlein, Andre Norton, Fritz Leiber, Frederick Pohl, Robert Silverberg and so many more - Poul Anderson's THERE WILL BE TIME can be read on two levels. Indeed, a brilliant, intensely evocative final chapter might well be considered a third meta-level to ponder.
The hard science fiction tale on the surface tells the dramatic, conflicted story of Jack Havig, a 20th century American born with a genetic mutation that allows him to travel through time on the strength of his will alone. His travels downtime to a post-apocalyptic future after a nuclear holocaust reveal a New Zealand-Micronesian culture known as the Maurai who have developed a pastoral, less technologically oriented, more ecologically focused and somewhat idealized culture. But his travels uptime, as far afield (or does one say "atime"?) as the Byzantine Empire at the time of the Crusaders, bring him into contact with a burgeoning right-wing group of fellow time-travelers led by a bigoted 19th century fellow American whose goal is the elimination of the non-white races who would presume to supplant them in the indefinite future. Two truly heart-warming tales of romance are an addition that one rarely enjoys in a novel like this.
But even fast moving surface waters can run deep and dark. The two-pronged theme that moves like an irresistible current under the surface deals first, of course, with the ethics of time travel itself and, second, with the perennial time travel issues of destiny versus free will and the possibilities of creating unresolvable paradoxes or changing events in the past that have already happened. Indeed, if I may say so, therein lies the single weakness of Anderson's novel. As Anderson has not introduced the concept of a multiverse with an infinite number of branching futures based on current events unfolding in real time, the professed inability of our time traveling protagonists to change a past event becomes a wall against which the brain of a questioning reader bumps over and over again.
And that final meta-concepts I referred to? Well, you're just going to have to read for yourself to get to the final few paragraphs. No cheating now but I guarantee that any science fiction reader worth his salt will smile and nod with complete satisfaction and grudging, quizzical agreement at the astonishing possibilities that Anderson raises in the final few sentences of a most worthy addition to your SF library.
Highly recommended.
Paul Weiss
Like the novels of so many of his stellar peers from that 20th century golden age of science fiction - Clifford D Simak, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, Robert Heinlein, Andre Norton, Fritz Leiber, Frederick Pohl, Robert Silverberg and so many more - Poul Anderson's THERE WILL BE TIME can be read on two levels. Indeed, a brilliant, intensely evocative final chapter might well be considered a third meta-level to ponder.
The hard science fiction tale on the surface tells the dramatic, conflicted story of Jack Havig, a 20th century American born with a genetic mutation that allows him to travel through time on the strength of his will alone. His travels downtime to a post-apocalyptic future after a nuclear holocaust reveal a New Zealand-Micronesian culture known as the Maurai who have developed a pastoral, less technologically oriented, more ecologically focused and somewhat idealized culture. But his travels uptime, as far afield (or does one say "atime"?) as the Byzantine Empire at the time of the Crusaders, bring him into contact with a burgeoning right-wing group of fellow time-travelers led by a bigoted 19th century fellow American whose goal is the elimination of the non-white races who would presume to supplant them in the indefinite future. Two truly heart-warming tales of romance are an addition that one rarely enjoys in a novel like this.
But even fast moving surface waters can run deep and dark. The two-pronged theme that moves like an irresistible current under the surface deals first, of course, with the ethics of time travel itself and, second, with the perennial time travel issues of destiny versus free will and the possibilities of creating unresolvable paradoxes or changing events in the past that have already happened. Indeed, if I may say so, therein lies the single weakness of Anderson's novel. As Anderson has not introduced the concept of a multiverse with an infinite number of branching futures based on current events unfolding in real time, the professed inability of our time traveling protagonists to change a past event becomes a wall against which the brain of a questioning reader bumps over and over again.
And that final meta-concepts I referred to? Well, you're just going to have to read for yourself to get to the final few paragraphs. No cheating now but I guarantee that any science fiction reader worth his salt will smile and nod with complete satisfaction and grudging, quizzical agreement at the astonishing possibilities that Anderson raises in the final few sentences of a most worthy addition to your SF library.
Highly recommended.
Paul Weiss
July 18, 2015
I am catching up on some neglected grand masters of science fiction and am lucky that alignment with a group read in time travel novels led me to this story by Anderson published in 1972. Shamefully, I have only read “Tau Zero” among his 50-plus sci fi novels, and I have long missed out on a chance to score another 5 star read like that one was for me. Given the early edition is hard to find, it was propitious to find it included in an omnibus collection of three novels from 1996, “Three in Time”. I agree with the fellow introducing this book in applying Anderson’s own words in an essay on the hallmarks of the epic form to characterize qualities of “There Will Be Time”:
Largeness—diversity—marvels—seriousness, possibly leavened by humor, a conviction that life is worth living—attention turned outward to te surrounding wolrd—the supposition that man can either bend fate, or can in his heart resist being bent by it—endurance, achievement—a narrative that keeps moving—bold use of language….
Jack Havig learns as a baby that he can move through time at will and quite soon to hide that ability. The first hint of his capabilities comes when as an infant his being seen as falling by his mother causes her to drop another him. The vignette of the dropping baby highlights the circular loop of causality possible in the universe of this book. You can contribute to causal events in a past time period if it doesn’t make too much disparity with the reality one experiences down the line. That barrier is common to time travel tales. The system at play here runs a plot on the time traveler’s ability to change the future from a given future point, a hopeful prospect that whetted my appetite in a way that mimics the wonder and adventure of older sci fi, creating an almost nostalgic feeling.
The story revives the classic approach to storytelling by revelations of a confidant and witness of the hero’s development (e.g. Melville, Conrad, the Apostles, Wells). Havig confesses all to his childhood doctor, Robert Anderson, a perfect avatar for the reader. He grounds us by making sense of Havig’s travels from his home time in the 60s, contemporary with the author’s writing of the novel. His narrator with a similar surname shows fatherly love for the young man which grows as Jack tests his abilities and eventually comes round to trying to save the future.
Given the premise of this ability, how would you live your life? If you stay alert enough, time slipping could keep you safe against many treats. We get an early dawning of Jake’s freakish ability to multiply himself for brief periods by short cycling in time, handy for a pre-teen faced with a pack of bullies on an urban street. But Jack avoids expressing such powers and looks for a quiet time in past periods where he can live comfortably as normal people. Slipping into the future is more disturbing and hard to read and fit into unusual cultures found there. Just a short period forward reveals an ecological and economic collapse over the horizon. But the escapes to the past are a lonely business. He can’t resist puzzling out how he might find others of his kind, if they exist. Finding others of his kind a quite a satisfying part of the story.
The others Jake does find are part of a recruitment effort by a group gathered from different times into a staging point in a low tech future after the apocalypse. Their powerful leader, called the Sachem, has learned from cautious visits to various futures of even a few centuries that there is a coming phase of totalitarian domination combined with low impact high tech in a future of extremely depleted resources. Can they prepare to drop into some future and shape a more Edenic outcome for human civilization? From the ability to carry objects when time travelling they carry out raids on chaotic points in the past to collect gold and weapons. Jake develops his skills as a virtual lieutenant of their charismatic leader.
But abuse of power is an insidious temptation for the gifted as much as with regular time-bound people. And rascist bias is hard to stamp out of the personalities of so many of the gang, raised in their centuries to judge societies conquered or dominated by dark-skinned peoples as an anathema of a defeated civilization. Jake’s little heaven in a family he creates in Byzantium in the early 13th century falls into the path of a brutal raid by the group associated with a European Crusader sack of Constantinople. Jack has to go his own way and make his own force, one that can foil the Sachem’s schemes.
All in all an exciting combination of engaging personal development, wonderful world-building across the sweep of time, and a compelling quest of great import that anyone can root for. No complaints to speak of. Granted our hero and his nemesis are a little sketchy, but readers can color him in with their own imaginations. The alternative to this book’s hybrid solution to the paradoxes of changing one’s timeline is a the use of a multiverse scenario, i.e. the timeline changes lead to either an alternate or a parallel reality of your known present. Think “The Terminator.” I think this book’s approach to maintaining a single timeline and universe was equally fun.
Largeness—diversity—marvels—seriousness, possibly leavened by humor, a conviction that life is worth living—attention turned outward to te surrounding wolrd—the supposition that man can either bend fate, or can in his heart resist being bent by it—endurance, achievement—a narrative that keeps moving—bold use of language….
Jack Havig learns as a baby that he can move through time at will and quite soon to hide that ability. The first hint of his capabilities comes when as an infant his being seen as falling by his mother causes her to drop another him. The vignette of the dropping baby highlights the circular loop of causality possible in the universe of this book. You can contribute to causal events in a past time period if it doesn’t make too much disparity with the reality one experiences down the line. That barrier is common to time travel tales. The system at play here runs a plot on the time traveler’s ability to change the future from a given future point, a hopeful prospect that whetted my appetite in a way that mimics the wonder and adventure of older sci fi, creating an almost nostalgic feeling.
The story revives the classic approach to storytelling by revelations of a confidant and witness of the hero’s development (e.g. Melville, Conrad, the Apostles, Wells). Havig confesses all to his childhood doctor, Robert Anderson, a perfect avatar for the reader. He grounds us by making sense of Havig’s travels from his home time in the 60s, contemporary with the author’s writing of the novel. His narrator with a similar surname shows fatherly love for the young man which grows as Jack tests his abilities and eventually comes round to trying to save the future.
Given the premise of this ability, how would you live your life? If you stay alert enough, time slipping could keep you safe against many treats. We get an early dawning of Jake’s freakish ability to multiply himself for brief periods by short cycling in time, handy for a pre-teen faced with a pack of bullies on an urban street. But Jack avoids expressing such powers and looks for a quiet time in past periods where he can live comfortably as normal people. Slipping into the future is more disturbing and hard to read and fit into unusual cultures found there. Just a short period forward reveals an ecological and economic collapse over the horizon. But the escapes to the past are a lonely business. He can’t resist puzzling out how he might find others of his kind, if they exist. Finding others of his kind a quite a satisfying part of the story.
The others Jake does find are part of a recruitment effort by a group gathered from different times into a staging point in a low tech future after the apocalypse. Their powerful leader, called the Sachem, has learned from cautious visits to various futures of even a few centuries that there is a coming phase of totalitarian domination combined with low impact high tech in a future of extremely depleted resources. Can they prepare to drop into some future and shape a more Edenic outcome for human civilization? From the ability to carry objects when time travelling they carry out raids on chaotic points in the past to collect gold and weapons. Jake develops his skills as a virtual lieutenant of their charismatic leader.
But abuse of power is an insidious temptation for the gifted as much as with regular time-bound people. And rascist bias is hard to stamp out of the personalities of so many of the gang, raised in their centuries to judge societies conquered or dominated by dark-skinned peoples as an anathema of a defeated civilization. Jake’s little heaven in a family he creates in Byzantium in the early 13th century falls into the path of a brutal raid by the group associated with a European Crusader sack of Constantinople. Jack has to go his own way and make his own force, one that can foil the Sachem’s schemes.
All in all an exciting combination of engaging personal development, wonderful world-building across the sweep of time, and a compelling quest of great import that anyone can root for. No complaints to speak of. Granted our hero and his nemesis are a little sketchy, but readers can color him in with their own imaginations. The alternative to this book’s hybrid solution to the paradoxes of changing one’s timeline is a the use of a multiverse scenario, i.e. the timeline changes lead to either an alternate or a parallel reality of your known present. Think “The Terminator.” I think this book’s approach to maintaining a single timeline and universe was equally fun.
June 10, 2008
Here's an inevitable but different take on the time travel story. It answers the question of where you would find other time travelers and what you would do when you found them. The place to find time travelers is apparently at Jesus' crucifixion. And what you do when you find them is to form a league of time travelers who can hopefully make the future a better place. Never have I seen any other time travel author touch on these ideas, but they do seem like obvious ideas.
This story was quite enjoyable and only took a couple of sittings to finish. The time travelers in this story have a genetic predisposition to time travel with their physical body instead of by using a time machine. Their period of time travel covers quite a large period of time from the crucifixion to ancient Rome to pre-Colombian America to 1970s America to the day of judgment and beyond. It covers themes of love and deception and also tries to answer the question of what the ultimate possibility could be for a time traveler.
I definitely think this time travel novel is a sadly overlooked one that should have become more famous than it did. Poul Anderson wrote several other novels with time travel themes that I'd like to delve into soon.
This story was quite enjoyable and only took a couple of sittings to finish. The time travelers in this story have a genetic predisposition to time travel with their physical body instead of by using a time machine. Their period of time travel covers quite a large period of time from the crucifixion to ancient Rome to pre-Colombian America to 1970s America to the day of judgment and beyond. It covers themes of love and deception and also tries to answer the question of what the ultimate possibility could be for a time traveler.
I definitely think this time travel novel is a sadly overlooked one that should have become more famous than it did. Poul Anderson wrote several other novels with time travel themes that I'd like to delve into soon.
April 5, 2017
“A man can do but little. Enough if that little be right.”
I’ve read this book before--long, long ago. Knowing the story, but having it told anew was a treat. Perhaps the height of Anderson’s skill as a storyteller. A slightly different take on time travel, but aren’t they all?
“Scientific information is only a glimmer on the surface of a mystery.”
Written in 1971, it grappled with the increasingly dangerous Cold War, which is remote to modern readers as World War One was to Anderson. “Try to understand your world in 1951.” Most of us have trouble imagining our world today; we don’t even try to learn the past, with Santayana’s forecast result.
“We need all the diversity, all the assorted ways of living and thinking, we can get. Inside of limits, true.”
His protagonist creates an instrument “built to his specification in 1980, to take advantage of the superb solid-state electronics then available.” Before you chuckle. Consider how much research and development go into integrated circuits; today (2017) it’s very hard to home make electronics. Today we (you and me) lack both the infrastructure and the know how. Besides, Anderson wasn't betting the War of Judgement would hold off much longer.
“Now that history’s returning to its normal climate here (North America) also, and the norm is an ice age.” In 1971 all right-thinking folks also thought the climate issue was the coming ice age. Sigh.
“Racist: a white person who, when any Black person rings a bell, fails to salivate.”
Text note: There are lots of transposed n’s and h’s, presumably uncorrected OCR errors.
“We made that which had once been good into an idol, and thereby allowed what good was left to rot out of it.”
Skip the “bonus” tales. They lack the quality of the main story, perhaps added to inflate the page count.
“But there are no happy endings. There are no endings of any kind. At most, we are given happy moments.”
I’ve read this book before--long, long ago. Knowing the story, but having it told anew was a treat. Perhaps the height of Anderson’s skill as a storyteller. A slightly different take on time travel, but aren’t they all?
“Scientific information is only a glimmer on the surface of a mystery.”
Written in 1971, it grappled with the increasingly dangerous Cold War, which is remote to modern readers as World War One was to Anderson. “Try to understand your world in 1951.” Most of us have trouble imagining our world today; we don’t even try to learn the past, with Santayana’s forecast result.
“We need all the diversity, all the assorted ways of living and thinking, we can get. Inside of limits, true.”
His protagonist creates an instrument “built to his specification in 1980, to take advantage of the superb solid-state electronics then available.” Before you chuckle. Consider how much research and development go into integrated circuits; today (2017) it’s very hard to home make electronics. Today we (you and me) lack both the infrastructure and the know how. Besides, Anderson wasn't betting the War of Judgement would hold off much longer.
“Now that history’s returning to its normal climate here (North America) also, and the norm is an ice age.” In 1971 all right-thinking folks also thought the climate issue was the coming ice age. Sigh.
“Racist: a white person who, when any Black person rings a bell, fails to salivate.”
Text note: There are lots of transposed n’s and h’s, presumably uncorrected OCR errors.
“We made that which had once been good into an idol, and thereby allowed what good was left to rot out of it.”
Skip the “bonus” tales. They lack the quality of the main story, perhaps added to inflate the page count.
“But there are no happy endings. There are no endings of any kind. At most, we are given happy moments.”
October 25, 2017
I can't tell you how much I love this book, nor count the number of times I've read it. It's one of those old favourites that is remembered every couple of years or so, and I go, "Oh yeah! THAT one! Time to read it again."
I don't think I've ever read an Anderson story I didn't like. Poul Anderson is an extremely accomplished writer and an extremely prolific one. He wrote a lot in the fantasy genre, but also a lot of time-travel books, and this is one of the best. I love it because it's short, it's exciting, it's thoughtful, and it's a complete story. It's about a guy, Jack Havig, who finds he can project himself through time with nothing but his own body -- it's an innate ability. The way he goes about exploring that and finding others like himself, and what he does when he finds them, makes for a compelling narrative that although written in the 70s still holds up today. Anderson cleverly avoided too much near-term prediction, whilst still speculating gently on what happens in the 21st century (and beyond).
And it resolves beautifully, with Havig discovering a higher purpose for the betterment of mankind.
Absolutely fantastic, in all senses of the word.
I don't think I've ever read an Anderson story I didn't like. Poul Anderson is an extremely accomplished writer and an extremely prolific one. He wrote a lot in the fantasy genre, but also a lot of time-travel books, and this is one of the best. I love it because it's short, it's exciting, it's thoughtful, and it's a complete story. It's about a guy, Jack Havig, who finds he can project himself through time with nothing but his own body -- it's an innate ability. The way he goes about exploring that and finding others like himself, and what he does when he finds them, makes for a compelling narrative that although written in the 70s still holds up today. Anderson cleverly avoided too much near-term prediction, whilst still speculating gently on what happens in the 21st century (and beyond).
And it resolves beautifully, with Havig discovering a higher purpose for the betterment of mankind.
Absolutely fantastic, in all senses of the word.
February 24, 2025
Here's another book about a guy with a super-power ( I seem to have read a lot of these). Jack Havig's power is to be able to move through time, either to the future or the past. When he goes to the future, he discovers there's a new Dark Age coming, and humanity will fall back into barbarism. Anderson wrote the book in 1973 and I think he did not care for the dissent going on, the Watergate scandal, and so on. So his time traveller sees all this leading to a collapse by the 1990s. I for one am glad that didn't happen. But we are not "out of the woods" yet! What made the story interesting is that Jack searches for others of his kind and discovers there are other time travellers out there--and they are not necessarily good guys.
May 24, 2017
Storyline: 4/5
Characters: 2/5
Writing Style: 2/5
World: 4/5
What it did right: Time travel! Who would have guessed?! I surely didn't. There were two ways in which Anderson made this unexpectedly enjoyable. First, time travel was largely consistent. That is such a rarity in the subgenre. Second, he did it without long digressions or asides into hard science fiction. Anderson gave reasonable and plausible answers of, that simply doesn't happen or I don't understand it myself, whenever a paradox came up and had good, simple explanations for other quibbles. The mechanisms aren't perfect, and it was something of a magician's trick to make the system coherent. The plotholes and gaps that do exist got shoved off into the realm of character motivations and behavior, leaving the time traveling world mostly sound. I've rarely seen the time travel elements used so effectively in storytelling and in the plot. The book was a lot of fun.
What else it did right: Jumping around locations like Anderson did could easily have come off as hokey or shallow, but one of Anderson's biggest points was a sociological and historical argument about the (in)ability of remarkably different people understanding one another. This, more than the time travel rule-building, made this a memorable and worthwhile read.
And yet another thing it did right: Rising above Cold War politics. This is very much a product of the Cold War. Prominent historical characters, events, and arguments mostly from the American perspective, provide the foundation for There Will Be Time. Anderson interjects some biting and blunt criticisms of both the left and the right of the political spectrum. He castigates the "progressives" of the era for a failure to see how much better a flawed America is than other options while he demonizes the "conservatives" for their refusal to use their privileged positions to elevate others. Poul Anderson was a tough-love policeman who arrested and charged everyone in the fight regardless of who started it. Most surprising, he turned the book away from politics into ecology. Perhaps more precisely, he made ecology the substance of politics.
The few weaknesses: The writing. I'd recently read Clifford Simak, another midwestern, Cold War era, science fiction author and contemporary, and Anderson's writing was inelegant and just barely functional in comparison. The characters were not so terrible (or remarkable) except that it was hard to believe any of the characters would have played their roles had the time travel system worked as indicated. This was just one of those turn-your-head-aside and don't look aspects where you willingly ignore a gaping flaw to better enjoy the story.
Characters: 2/5
Writing Style: 2/5
World: 4/5
What it did right: Time travel! Who would have guessed?! I surely didn't. There were two ways in which Anderson made this unexpectedly enjoyable. First, time travel was largely consistent. That is such a rarity in the subgenre. Second, he did it without long digressions or asides into hard science fiction. Anderson gave reasonable and plausible answers of, that simply doesn't happen or I don't understand it myself, whenever a paradox came up and had good, simple explanations for other quibbles. The mechanisms aren't perfect, and it was something of a magician's trick to make the system coherent. The plotholes and gaps that do exist got shoved off into the realm of character motivations and behavior, leaving the time traveling world mostly sound. I've rarely seen the time travel elements used so effectively in storytelling and in the plot. The book was a lot of fun.
What else it did right: Jumping around locations like Anderson did could easily have come off as hokey or shallow, but one of Anderson's biggest points was a sociological and historical argument about the (in)ability of remarkably different people understanding one another. This, more than the time travel rule-building, made this a memorable and worthwhile read.
And yet another thing it did right: Rising above Cold War politics. This is very much a product of the Cold War. Prominent historical characters, events, and arguments mostly from the American perspective, provide the foundation for There Will Be Time. Anderson interjects some biting and blunt criticisms of both the left and the right of the political spectrum. He castigates the "progressives" of the era for a failure to see how much better a flawed America is than other options while he demonizes the "conservatives" for their refusal to use their privileged positions to elevate others. Poul Anderson was a tough-love policeman who arrested and charged everyone in the fight regardless of who started it. Most surprising, he turned the book away from politics into ecology. Perhaps more precisely, he made ecology the substance of politics.
The few weaknesses: The writing. I'd recently read Clifford Simak, another midwestern, Cold War era, science fiction author and contemporary, and Anderson's writing was inelegant and just barely functional in comparison. The characters were not so terrible (or remarkable) except that it was hard to believe any of the characters would have played their roles had the time travel system worked as indicated. This was just one of those turn-your-head-aside and don't look aspects where you willingly ignore a gaping flaw to better enjoy the story.
July 25, 2021
I think the first 50 pages, the childhood and youth, were the strongest part of the book, being quite simple and containing the most defined relationships. Once Jack meets the other time travelers, I wasn't that invested in the actual plot. I like the idea of the time traveler organisation and their execution made sense, but as characters there was too little to them.
I think it's interesting that this follows the older trope of an unbelivable story not being narrated by the protagonist but a person of authority, would not have expected that anymore in the 70s. However, Jacks Interactions with the narrator were my favourite parts of the later book, apart from the Xenia plotline, which was questionable but strangely kept me engaged.
I think it's interesting that this follows the older trope of an unbelivable story not being narrated by the protagonist but a person of authority, would not have expected that anymore in the 70s. However, Jacks Interactions with the narrator were my favourite parts of the later book, apart from the Xenia plotline, which was questionable but strangely kept me engaged.
June 11, 2018
Honestly, I don't have much to say. I read it for the Time Travel Group here, hoping for a good old classic 'What If' story of ideas, and I guess that's what I got. Characters, superficial. Heart & soul, absent. Plot, workmanlike. Ideas interesting, somewhere halfway in between Simak's pastoral and Heinlein's militaristic. Ultimately, forgettable. *imo* ... maybe I've read too many books to appreciate this sub-genre any more.
March 7, 2025
Ово је књига о неком лику за ког се испостави да може да путује кроз вријеме at will и онда он тако путује кроз вријеме и упозна се са другим путницима кроз вријеме и они га поведу свом вођи и испостави се да се они боре против неке зле цивилизације која хоће да завлада свијетом или тако некако, па се онда наш херој посвађа с њима и томе слично и све у свему овде се реално ни у једном тренутку не дешава ништа претјерано занимљиво. Океј, рецимо да није лош дио кад се наш херој задеси у Константинопољу за вријеме крсташког пустошења, али све у свему комплетна прича је прилично немаштовита и углавном служи као подлога за некакво филозофирање, које такође није много интересантно. Оно што ми се свидјело јесте детаљ који раније нисам видио ни у једном дјелу које се бави путовањем кроз вријеме, а то је да неко од ликова директно каже како је немогуће мијењати догађаје - не само оне "велике", него је немогуће направити било какву контрадикцију. Додуше, то се спомене на једном мјесту у књизи и онда се послије тога сви понашају као да појма немају о томе. Истина, овде нема контрадикција, у смислу да се десио неки догађај па се онда неко вратио у прошлост и измијенио тај исти догађај. Ако је потребно да једна особа у истом тренутку у времену ради двије различите ствари, онда се ту налазе двије "копије" те особе, два његова различита "ја". Тако је комуникација са самим собом прилично уобичајена ствар. Да ли је ово контрадикција, то је већ тема за размишљање. Али то је на крају крајева мање битно, оно што је битније је да је свему овоме требало мало (много) више духа, мало (много) занимљивији ликови и томе слично. Па Терминатор 2 и Повратак у будућност су пуни контрадикција, па су ипак најбоља умјетничка дјела која се баве путовањем кроз вријеме. Наравно, код Повратка у будућност су све контрадикције намјерне и у сврху хумора, али сад се већ расплињавам и пловим у дигресије, а касно је и вријеме је да се спава. Морам још да напоменем да је ова књига можда дошла на ред за читање у помало злосрећном тренутку. Пол Андерсон свакако није лош писац, али кад наиђеш одмах послије Хамлета, то зна да направи проблеме.
July 29, 2019
This is a short and sweet book that introduces a very interesting concept and further solidifies my high opinion of Poul Anderson. Anderson is a rare example of a very well-rounded golden age science fiction writer: the world-building, characters, plot and concepts are all very solid. Most importantly, almost all of his books really seem to hold up - even the degree to which there are apocalyptic portents in the book is remarkably timeless compared to many of his contemporaries.
I often complain that books these days are actually far too long - I rarely see the little 150-250 page easy reads that distill down the essence of some science fiction concept and tell an effective story in a short space. Somehow Anderson takes on a big topic like time travel and weaves a complicated story in only ~200 pages and in some ways it feels like a longer book in the details he explores. Still, there was a lot more left to explore and I would have loved to read any sequels or parallel novels to this book, because Anderson really only scratched the surface in some ways.
That said, for those looking for more like this, I can recommend The Boat of a Million Years . Although the actual mechanisms he's playing with are different, I see this book as something of a prototype for The Boat of a Million Years. There are many parallels between the stories (spoilers only for some specific, likely mundane details in both books):
In The Boat of a Million Years, Anderson fleshes out the consequences of the premise a lot more than in There Will Be Time, and in fact some of the consequences we see here are explored more in that book.
5 of 5 stars
I often complain that books these days are actually far too long - I rarely see the little 150-250 page easy reads that distill down the essence of some science fiction concept and tell an effective story in a short space. Somehow Anderson takes on a big topic like time travel and weaves a complicated story in only ~200 pages and in some ways it feels like a longer book in the details he explores. Still, there was a lot more left to explore and I would have loved to read any sequels or parallel novels to this book, because Anderson really only scratched the surface in some ways.
That said, for those looking for more like this, I can recommend The Boat of a Million Years . Although the actual mechanisms he's playing with are different, I see this book as something of a prototype for The Boat of a Million Years. There are many parallels between the stories (spoilers only for some specific, likely mundane details in both books):
In The Boat of a Million Years, Anderson fleshes out the consequences of the premise a lot more than in There Will Be Time, and in fact some of the consequences we see here are explored more in that book.
5 of 5 stars
October 17, 2020
Really interesting premise, and I like how Anderson set up the characters and the world. Unfortunately the main plot ended up feeling lacking to me. The first half of the book was intriguing, but once the action got underway, I had a very strong feeling of "all that buildup for ... this?"
January 9, 2023
I'm giving up on this in the middle.
The first part is intriguing when it was only about Jack's solo travels, but it lost me completely when it did a ridiculous 180 to being about the time-traveler...army? Guerrilla group? Whatever it was, it was boring.
It also doesn't help that this whole thing is not even from the actual time-traveler's perspective, but instead from that of his non-time-traveling friend, someone who doesn't get to see any of the action. How could that possibly keep anyone's attention? It's like one of the Hobbits who stayed in the Shire describing what happened in The Lord of the Rings.
The first part is intriguing when it was only about Jack's solo travels, but it lost me completely when it did a ridiculous 180 to being about the time-traveler...army? Guerrilla group? Whatever it was, it was boring.
It also doesn't help that this whole thing is not even from the actual time-traveler's perspective, but instead from that of his non-time-traveling friend, someone who doesn't get to see any of the action. How could that possibly keep anyone's attention? It's like one of the Hobbits who stayed in the Shire describing what happened in The Lord of the Rings.
November 1, 2019
Fast paced and action packed yet still thought provoking, this typical Anderson time travel tale pits two Americans from different eras against each other in a battle to shape the future for all of humanity.
The Open Roads edition I read includes two bonus stories set in the far future where the ecologically conscious Maurai Federation is the world's sole superpower.
The Open Roads edition I read includes two bonus stories set in the far future where the ecologically conscious Maurai Federation is the world's sole superpower.
Read
April 12, 2024(alte Wertung: Die Idee war gut, der Roman ist aber etwas unlogisch und auch etwas langweilig geschrieben. 3)
February 27, 2021
*** 2.5 STARS ***
There Will Be Time is a time travel science fiction book that was a good and short read but did not blow my mind. It started quite slow but halfway it got more interesting and the pace was much faster. Jack is the main character who can travel across time. However, I did not like the choice of the narrator, as the story is told from Jack’s doctor’s POV, who is also his friend. I really felt that it lost a lot of potential with the story not being told from the main source.
Time travelling and alternative worlds is something that fascinates me, so I really enjoyed reading about both the past and the future and the dilemmas coming from having this knowledge and skill. Not one of the best examples of the genre but enough to entertain me for a couple of hours.
There Will Be Time is a time travel science fiction book that was a good and short read but did not blow my mind. It started quite slow but halfway it got more interesting and the pace was much faster. Jack is the main character who can travel across time. However, I did not like the choice of the narrator, as the story is told from Jack’s doctor’s POV, who is also his friend. I really felt that it lost a lot of potential with the story not being told from the main source.
Time travelling and alternative worlds is something that fascinates me, so I really enjoyed reading about both the past and the future and the dilemmas coming from having this knowledge and skill. Not one of the best examples of the genre but enough to entertain me for a couple of hours.
July 4, 2016
"Caution: Spoilers"
uh....meh...
Plot? Aftermath? Denouement?
I was hooked on the furious action, couldn't put it down. Then...felt dumped randomly into a conclusion with no aftermath where I could catch my breath, no denouement. And maybe I'm repeating myself (denouement), but I could detect no resolution, no point, no message. Then, Deus Ex Machina: the protagonists are just swept away by space travel.
The lack of aftermath felt like a theme park thrill ride, tossing me in every direction at high speed and then...just dumping me onto a concrete floor from a height of about ten feet.
I hate deus ex machina. To me, it's like, "OK, I ran out of stuff to write so here's this "Surprise!" arbitrary conclusion from outside the plot (in this case, space travel, not time travel)."
Maybe it never occurred to me the planet and the race could survive indefinitely (that is to say, "There Will be Time"?). Maybe I had a faulty certainty one or both would end. Maybe the denouement is, the planet and the race survive our present suicidal race to the bottom. For example, perhaps, "We survive the exhaustion of fossil fuels!" "We survive our thousands of nuclear warheads!" "We survive our destruction of ecology!" "We survive the dozens of wars!" at any given moment on this rock.
To the author's credit, the 1970's "Devil's Dictionary" was clever, accurate and, for me, comic relief (unfortunately, I remember 1970).
I don't even remember why the Eyrie earned destruction in Jack's viewpoint, other than they had killed his wife. Was there a broader, less personal motive? Like, the Eyrie were a racket of murderers, rapists and thieves posing as a venerated guild of scientists using time travel to secure the future of the planet and the race?
Maybe I'm too formal. Maybe I was expecting an Aesop Fable with a moral: time travel good; time travel bad. Or, perhaps, a grand lesson: best stick around and change what you can when and where you are.
Anyway...hmmm.....
uh....meh...
Plot? Aftermath? Denouement?
I was hooked on the furious action, couldn't put it down. Then...felt dumped randomly into a conclusion with no aftermath where I could catch my breath, no denouement. And maybe I'm repeating myself (denouement), but I could detect no resolution, no point, no message. Then, Deus Ex Machina: the protagonists are just swept away by space travel.
The lack of aftermath felt like a theme park thrill ride, tossing me in every direction at high speed and then...just dumping me onto a concrete floor from a height of about ten feet.
I hate deus ex machina. To me, it's like, "OK, I ran out of stuff to write so here's this "Surprise!" arbitrary conclusion from outside the plot (in this case, space travel, not time travel)."
Maybe it never occurred to me the planet and the race could survive indefinitely (that is to say, "There Will be Time"?). Maybe I had a faulty certainty one or both would end. Maybe the denouement is, the planet and the race survive our present suicidal race to the bottom. For example, perhaps, "We survive the exhaustion of fossil fuels!" "We survive our thousands of nuclear warheads!" "We survive our destruction of ecology!" "We survive the dozens of wars!" at any given moment on this rock.
To the author's credit, the 1970's "Devil's Dictionary" was clever, accurate and, for me, comic relief (unfortunately, I remember 1970).
I don't even remember why the Eyrie earned destruction in Jack's viewpoint, other than they had killed his wife. Was there a broader, less personal motive? Like, the Eyrie were a racket of murderers, rapists and thieves posing as a venerated guild of scientists using time travel to secure the future of the planet and the race?
Maybe I'm too formal. Maybe I was expecting an Aesop Fable with a moral: time travel good; time travel bad. Or, perhaps, a grand lesson: best stick around and change what you can when and where you are.
Anyway...hmmm.....
December 26, 2014
read this one back in february here it is the day after christmas 2014. no index. hmmmm. did read a hardcover, the book club edition, if it matters. it doesn't. four-stars. musta liked it. i liked, enjoyed the idea of traveling through time. the jaunt, as alfred bester described it, in one of his stories. others probably before and since. whereas in...was it The Demolished Man or The Stars My Destination...or maybe boff? anyway, whereas in one of those stories...the character capable of jaunting...that king popularized in his short story of the same name..."the jaunt" was it?...in those, the travel is from point a to point b in the same time...this one involves time. i wish i could remember more about the story but with the hard=cover on the countertop before me...i'm at a loss. koontz, too, used the same idea in one of more of his stories...Dragon TearsOne Door Away from Heaven ?
for sure in either or both Fear NothingFear NothingSeize the Night...so...if nothing else, perhaps the bread crumbs will find an appeal.
for sure in either or both Fear NothingFear NothingSeize the Night...so...if nothing else, perhaps the bread crumbs will find an appeal.
April 29, 2015
Jack Havig is a most unusual man. He is a man who can travel through time, without any artificial aid. At first content to just satisfy his own curiosity, he eventually discovers a great threat to Earth's future and must band together with others of his kind to save the future of civilisation.
I enjoyed this book quite a lot. The rules of time travel are quite well defined and the author uses them effectively, for example the fact that anything touching the traveller will go with him, but he can only "lift" so much with him through time, so a piece of wire attached to a wall and looped around his ankle is enough to stop him time travelling.
The story is told through a third party, Jack's family doctor and childhood friend to whom Jack returns every so often to relate the next part of his adventures, and the old sawbones is a likeable narrator and doctor of the Bones McCoy variety.
Jack's emotional trauma in Constantinople is believable and well-related, making him a very human hero. His relationship with the Eyrie is interesting and the story keeps you guessing where it's going all the way through.
A fun story of time travel, with some meat on the bones and decent characterisation.
I enjoyed this book quite a lot. The rules of time travel are quite well defined and the author uses them effectively, for example the fact that anything touching the traveller will go with him, but he can only "lift" so much with him through time, so a piece of wire attached to a wall and looped around his ankle is enough to stop him time travelling.
The story is told through a third party, Jack's family doctor and childhood friend to whom Jack returns every so often to relate the next part of his adventures, and the old sawbones is a likeable narrator and doctor of the Bones McCoy variety.
Jack's emotional trauma in Constantinople is believable and well-related, making him a very human hero. His relationship with the Eyrie is interesting and the story keeps you guessing where it's going all the way through.
A fun story of time travel, with some meat on the bones and decent characterisation.
October 13, 2013
My grade = 95% A
This is one of my perennial favorites that I know I've read way more than a dozen times. According to my records, I last read it in 2004 and then decided that, as I was getting older, it was time to stop rereading my favorites and move on to all the books I haven't read.
So on Friday night I finished my second Louise Penny novel, picked up the newest Rick Riordan, House of Hades, headed upstairs, and had the urge to pull out this one again.
Basically, it's about certain individuals' ability to move through time at will. It reminds me very much of Stephen Gould's Jumper, except that book was about moving through space at will.
The main character, Jack Havig, sets about to discover others of his kind. Much of the story is about what happens after he does.....
This is one of my perennial favorites that I know I've read way more than a dozen times. According to my records, I last read it in 2004 and then decided that, as I was getting older, it was time to stop rereading my favorites and move on to all the books I haven't read.
So on Friday night I finished my second Louise Penny novel, picked up the newest Rick Riordan, House of Hades, headed upstairs, and had the urge to pull out this one again.
Basically, it's about certain individuals' ability to move through time at will. It reminds me very much of Stephen Gould's Jumper, except that book was about moving through space at will.
The main character, Jack Havig, sets about to discover others of his kind. Much of the story is about what happens after he does.....
March 19, 2013
I love time travel novels, and this was a good one. It reasoned out more than any other time travel book I've read the whys and hows of being a traveller, and at the same time had a compelling plot, set all over the world and over history. I wonder if this was read by the author of The Time Traveler's Wife, as there are a few minor similarities, especially in telling of the main character's early life. The ending is hopeful, and the writing has a great tone---thought-provoking and emotional-provoking without being overdone. I'm going to look for more Poul Anderson novels.
February 2, 2016
An interesting take on time travel. However, the inability to change anything and the vague amount of details provided about the story made it a bit uninteresting. The characters were ultimately unknowable and thus were not able to be connected with. The plot was somewhat interesting but it was overall a mediocre novel.
May 18, 2019
Pocelo mi je odlicno, i bas sam gutao prvih sezdesetak stranica. No onda mi padne zanimljivost kada se pojave drugi putnici kroz vrijeme, sami kraj mi je isto ok. Anderson je majstor u opisivanju prirode ali u ovoj knjizi mi radnja je mogla biti bolja.
July 30, 2008
Time travel stories aren't my favorite in SF, but this is a good one. I wondered years later if Dean Koontz got some of the influence of his "The Bad Place" from this Poul Anderson work.
April 3, 2015
I got nearly halfway through this book and finally gave up. I couldn't stand the writing.
May 3, 2016
I enjoy time travel tales, and this is one of the best.
August 17, 2020
There Will Be Time by Poul Anderson (1972)
As an infant Jack Havig learns that he can move through time at will, and later on an older version of himself warns him to hide that ability from other people. The story employs a traditional storytelling device by having it narrated through Havig’s childhood doctor, Robert Anderson, through whose eyes the reader gets to know the protagonist and watches him develop as a person.
The premise of the story encourages the reader to consider how life could or should be lived by an individual with such a gift. Of course, on the one hand time travel could be very useful in mapping out your personal future and avoiding danger. On the other hand, however, it could be highly unpredictable and hazardous too. And in what time and location could you hope to find other people with the same natural ability (assuming there are any), and why might you want to contact them? One obvious place (which has also been used by other writers of time-travel stories) might be First Century Jerusalem, especially around the supposed time of Jesus’ ministry and death.
The somewhat idealistic Havig hopes that fellow time travelers can unite to create a bright future for mankind, and he discovers that an organization apparently engaged in such a mission is already in operation. Alas, abuse of power is a powerful temptation, and prejudices and hatreds brought from the ages in which the individual travelers were born are not easily overcome. When Jack’s secret idyll which he creates in ancient Byzantium (which is beautifully and poignantly described, as it is in Anderson’s book The Boat of a Million Years) is ruthlessly and mercilessly destroyed by other members of the organization, he resolves to establish his own to counter their nefarious disregard for basic human decency.
The book employs time travel as a means to show that societies and political entities naturally develop and disintegrate, and that it is impossible for them to endure forever. The intelligence and perspicacity of the author as a thoughtful observer of human nature is also powerfully manifested in this work.
There Will Be Time is relatively short at less than 180 pages, but there is so much packed into it that it may give the impression of being longer. That it is probably one of Poul Anderson’s better works is evidenced by the fact that it was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1973.
Here are some passages which I particularly enjoyed:
The air was cold and smelled of earth. Birds twittered. “Beyond one or two hundred years back,” Havig once said to me, “the daytime sky is always full of wings.”
“If anything does change man,” he said, “it’s science and technology. Just think about the fact--while it lasts--that parents need not take for granted some of their babies will die. You get a completely different concept of what a child is.”
I’ve seen photographs which he took on different occasions, and can well imagine this scene. It was less gaudy than you may suppose, who live in an age of aniline dyes and fluorescents. Fabrics were subdued brown, gray, blue, cinnabar, and dusty.
“Give them their religion, make the priests cooperate, and you have them.”
I’ve seen what happens when you try to straitjacket man into an ideology.
Mortal combat corrupts, and war corrupts absolutely.
A man can do but little. Enough if that little be right.
Nature never has been in perfect balance--there are many more extinct species than live--and primitive man was quite as destructive as modern. He simply took longer to use up his environment. Probably Stone Age hunters exterminated the giant mammals of the Pleistocene. Certainly farmers with sickles and digging sticks wore out what started as the Fertile Crescent.
But there are no happy endings. There are no endings of any kind. At most, we are given happy moments.
“…our freedom lies in the unknown.”
Above everything else, perhaps, was today’s concept of working together. I don’t mean its totalitarian version, for which Jack Havig had total loathing, or that “togetherness,” be it in a corporation or a commune, which he despised. I mean an enlightened pragmatism that rejects self-appointed aristocrats, does not believe received doctrine is necessarily true, stands ready to hear and weigh what anyone has to offer, and maintains well-developed channels to carry all ideas to the leadership and back again.
As an infant Jack Havig learns that he can move through time at will, and later on an older version of himself warns him to hide that ability from other people. The story employs a traditional storytelling device by having it narrated through Havig’s childhood doctor, Robert Anderson, through whose eyes the reader gets to know the protagonist and watches him develop as a person.
The premise of the story encourages the reader to consider how life could or should be lived by an individual with such a gift. Of course, on the one hand time travel could be very useful in mapping out your personal future and avoiding danger. On the other hand, however, it could be highly unpredictable and hazardous too. And in what time and location could you hope to find other people with the same natural ability (assuming there are any), and why might you want to contact them? One obvious place (which has also been used by other writers of time-travel stories) might be First Century Jerusalem, especially around the supposed time of Jesus’ ministry and death.
The somewhat idealistic Havig hopes that fellow time travelers can unite to create a bright future for mankind, and he discovers that an organization apparently engaged in such a mission is already in operation. Alas, abuse of power is a powerful temptation, and prejudices and hatreds brought from the ages in which the individual travelers were born are not easily overcome. When Jack’s secret idyll which he creates in ancient Byzantium (which is beautifully and poignantly described, as it is in Anderson’s book The Boat of a Million Years) is ruthlessly and mercilessly destroyed by other members of the organization, he resolves to establish his own to counter their nefarious disregard for basic human decency.
The book employs time travel as a means to show that societies and political entities naturally develop and disintegrate, and that it is impossible for them to endure forever. The intelligence and perspicacity of the author as a thoughtful observer of human nature is also powerfully manifested in this work.
There Will Be Time is relatively short at less than 180 pages, but there is so much packed into it that it may give the impression of being longer. That it is probably one of Poul Anderson’s better works is evidenced by the fact that it was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1973.
Here are some passages which I particularly enjoyed:
The air was cold and smelled of earth. Birds twittered. “Beyond one or two hundred years back,” Havig once said to me, “the daytime sky is always full of wings.”
“If anything does change man,” he said, “it’s science and technology. Just think about the fact--while it lasts--that parents need not take for granted some of their babies will die. You get a completely different concept of what a child is.”
I’ve seen photographs which he took on different occasions, and can well imagine this scene. It was less gaudy than you may suppose, who live in an age of aniline dyes and fluorescents. Fabrics were subdued brown, gray, blue, cinnabar, and dusty.
“Give them their religion, make the priests cooperate, and you have them.”
I’ve seen what happens when you try to straitjacket man into an ideology.
Mortal combat corrupts, and war corrupts absolutely.
A man can do but little. Enough if that little be right.
Nature never has been in perfect balance--there are many more extinct species than live--and primitive man was quite as destructive as modern. He simply took longer to use up his environment. Probably Stone Age hunters exterminated the giant mammals of the Pleistocene. Certainly farmers with sickles and digging sticks wore out what started as the Fertile Crescent.
But there are no happy endings. There are no endings of any kind. At most, we are given happy moments.
“…our freedom lies in the unknown.”
Above everything else, perhaps, was today’s concept of working together. I don’t mean its totalitarian version, for which Jack Havig had total loathing, or that “togetherness,” be it in a corporation or a commune, which he despised. I mean an enlightened pragmatism that rejects self-appointed aristocrats, does not believe received doctrine is necessarily true, stands ready to hear and weigh what anyone has to offer, and maintains well-developed channels to carry all ideas to the leadership and back again.
June 10, 2023
Jack Havig has a genetic mutation that allows him to travel through time and finds out that an apocalypse will occur to the human race unless he does something about it. He meets up with other mutated people where he finds out the leader is a racist who wants a culled people in the second age of man. What can Jack do and is it worth doing anything?
What a jumbled mess of a story this is. With time travel the reader is either at the fixed point in time hearing about the tale or you follow the traveler on his journey. With the fixed point, which this story is, there’s bound to be a lot of jumping around because that’s what it’d feel like from your stationary spot. The jumping around here is in Poul Anderson coming into paragraphs with about two previous ones missing. Plot points are picked up and then dropped. Jack goes to the date of the crucifixion to meet other time travels so as to prevent the end of the world. No one bothers to look upon the scene of the most famous event in history; which would have been a really interesting perspective to show the “otherness” of time travelers but the reason for meeting up is really dropped. A change to the white ruler in the second age of man is brought about but the salvation from the apocalypse isn’t even discussed again.
There is some great understanding of Anderson to not just drop his time travel characters into the midst of the date where the traveler has to arrive. He understands how much information gathering would have to be accomplished. How slow it would take to amass any wealth and influence. However, the time length to carry this out is brushed over too quickly and it skips around from needing to find a way to carry out the Big Plan to I like this family to I’ve fallen in love. Again, with the time travel aspect to this story, one might think it was done on purpose but that seems to be an excuse one would give for poor story structure.
The story is attempted to be told from the meetings Jack has with his childhood doctor who is the only “normal person” who knows he’s a time traveler. This is really an interesting point of view to take. However, it is quickly dropped just to follow Jack’s perspective with a few asides to bring the doctor back into focus. This is like a found footage film that forgets it needs to have the perspective of found footage to maintain the storytelling element it started off with.
The timing of everything is also way off. I know, a book about time travel can hand wave this away. But the entirety of the book from Jack’s perspective still feels like a lifetime but it only shows his with a period of about 30 years under his belt. The amount of time Jack takes to fall in love is way too quick and without connection and is done to only provide a dramatic point or advance the plot for its sake. Emotion is tread on without the build up to pay it off in the end. The final 20 pages of the book feels like the final act of the book so it’s rushed.
The hop, skip, and jump around you expect from a time travel book is obtained from only the clunky writing of Anderson. Character development is nonexistent - why do characters that supposedly care about Byzantine rulers and the end of the world not care about the crucifixion? Why is there any attempt to care about the apocalypse when there’s rare to no connection with anyone in the world due to their mutated power? The big questions of God, life, time that the book brings up are only shrugged off without satisfaction while anything the characters care about suddenly become the only things worth knowing. Most of the connecting pieces to the story are missing. One would have to go back in time and add them in. Final Grade - D+
What a jumbled mess of a story this is. With time travel the reader is either at the fixed point in time hearing about the tale or you follow the traveler on his journey. With the fixed point, which this story is, there’s bound to be a lot of jumping around because that’s what it’d feel like from your stationary spot. The jumping around here is in Poul Anderson coming into paragraphs with about two previous ones missing. Plot points are picked up and then dropped. Jack goes to the date of the crucifixion to meet other time travels so as to prevent the end of the world. No one bothers to look upon the scene of the most famous event in history; which would have been a really interesting perspective to show the “otherness” of time travelers but the reason for meeting up is really dropped. A change to the white ruler in the second age of man is brought about but the salvation from the apocalypse isn’t even discussed again.
There is some great understanding of Anderson to not just drop his time travel characters into the midst of the date where the traveler has to arrive. He understands how much information gathering would have to be accomplished. How slow it would take to amass any wealth and influence. However, the time length to carry this out is brushed over too quickly and it skips around from needing to find a way to carry out the Big Plan to I like this family to I’ve fallen in love. Again, with the time travel aspect to this story, one might think it was done on purpose but that seems to be an excuse one would give for poor story structure.
The story is attempted to be told from the meetings Jack has with his childhood doctor who is the only “normal person” who knows he’s a time traveler. This is really an interesting point of view to take. However, it is quickly dropped just to follow Jack’s perspective with a few asides to bring the doctor back into focus. This is like a found footage film that forgets it needs to have the perspective of found footage to maintain the storytelling element it started off with.
The timing of everything is also way off. I know, a book about time travel can hand wave this away. But the entirety of the book from Jack’s perspective still feels like a lifetime but it only shows his with a period of about 30 years under his belt. The amount of time Jack takes to fall in love is way too quick and without connection and is done to only provide a dramatic point or advance the plot for its sake. Emotion is tread on without the build up to pay it off in the end. The final 20 pages of the book feels like the final act of the book so it’s rushed.
The hop, skip, and jump around you expect from a time travel book is obtained from only the clunky writing of Anderson. Character development is nonexistent - why do characters that supposedly care about Byzantine rulers and the end of the world not care about the crucifixion? Why is there any attempt to care about the apocalypse when there’s rare to no connection with anyone in the world due to their mutated power? The big questions of God, life, time that the book brings up are only shrugged off without satisfaction while anything the characters care about suddenly become the only things worth knowing. Most of the connecting pieces to the story are missing. One would have to go back in time and add them in. Final Grade - D+
April 18, 2018
Having not read a time travel book for a while, let's jump back in. This is a supposed classic of the genre, about a group of humans who possibly though a genetic mutation have the ability to travel through time at will. Anderson's story focuses on Jack Havig, born in the 1930s, and the story is largely narrated by a family friend and doctor, being the only person the young Jack can confide in. Havig eventually meets a group of similar individuals, from different eras, and discovers a plot to "rescue civilisation" from future events most of which seem to concern the fallout from WW III. The problem is that this plot is primarily motivated by racism, dominated by a 19th century bigot, and run by people whose background sees nothing wrong in their quest. Jack experiences their brutality first hand, and vows to defeat their plans.
As usual, the treatment of Time paradox is all over the place - in some chapters events are immutable, in others Jack and his followers can affect time at will. The key aspect of this book which I like however is it's recognition that people are products of the eras in which they grew up. The 19th century bigot grew up at a time of US slavery, and had an ingrained view about racial difference, which even having the opportunity to observe different times and places couldn't shift. My favourite quote from the book sums this up "‘Look, suppose you were a time traveller from, well, Egypt of the Pharaohs. Suppose you came to today’s world and touristed around, trying to stay anonymous. How much sense would anything make?". This is a good insight, which much of Time Travel fiction misses, with people wandering around different eras unobserved and somehow able to appreciate everything.
It is not brilliantly written - the characters are a little two dimensional, and the plot contains too many unnecessary dead end excursions. However, it contains some interesting ideas and for its time (the early 1970's) foresaw lots of trends. I love Anderson's dismissal of late 20th environmentalists (presumably Californian hippies) when he says "He leered. ‘Yeah. “Environment” was very big for a while. Ecology Now stickers on the windshields of cars belonging to hairy young men – cars which dripped oil wherever they parked and took off in clouds of smoke thicker than your pipe can produce … Before long, the fashionable cause was something else, I forget what." Too true. Anderson also acknowledges that the ability to time travel might not be all that it is cut out to be - "‘Toulouse-Lautrec’s Paris?’ I asked at random. He had already told me that earlier decadences were overrated, or at least consisted of tight-knit upper classes which didn’t welcome strangers."
As usual, the treatment of Time paradox is all over the place - in some chapters events are immutable, in others Jack and his followers can affect time at will. The key aspect of this book which I like however is it's recognition that people are products of the eras in which they grew up. The 19th century bigot grew up at a time of US slavery, and had an ingrained view about racial difference, which even having the opportunity to observe different times and places couldn't shift. My favourite quote from the book sums this up "‘Look, suppose you were a time traveller from, well, Egypt of the Pharaohs. Suppose you came to today’s world and touristed around, trying to stay anonymous. How much sense would anything make?". This is a good insight, which much of Time Travel fiction misses, with people wandering around different eras unobserved and somehow able to appreciate everything.
It is not brilliantly written - the characters are a little two dimensional, and the plot contains too many unnecessary dead end excursions. However, it contains some interesting ideas and for its time (the early 1970's) foresaw lots of trends. I love Anderson's dismissal of late 20th environmentalists (presumably Californian hippies) when he says "He leered. ‘Yeah. “Environment” was very big for a while. Ecology Now stickers on the windshields of cars belonging to hairy young men – cars which dripped oil wherever they parked and took off in clouds of smoke thicker than your pipe can produce … Before long, the fashionable cause was something else, I forget what." Too true. Anderson also acknowledges that the ability to time travel might not be all that it is cut out to be - "‘Toulouse-Lautrec’s Paris?’ I asked at random. He had already told me that earlier decadences were overrated, or at least consisted of tight-knit upper classes which didn’t welcome strangers."
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