The Time Patrol

Rating:
Summary: Poul Anderson hits a homerun through the ages!
Review: Anderson has provided the paradigm shift for all who wish to write about time. Causal loops and ethical delimmas conspire to provide an entertaining read as well as a well thought out philosophy of time travel. I hope this book comes back into print so I can purchase a copy for myself. I have check out the library copy twice so I can relive Manse Everard's adventures before reading "Shield of Time" which is the sequel. Now if I can just find the Time Patrol Office in this milieu.

Rating:
Summary: Poul Anderson hits a homerun through the ages!
Review: Anderson has provided the paradigm shift for all who wish to write about time. Causal loops and ethical delimmas conspire to provide an entertaining read as well as a well thought out philosophy of time travel. I hope this book comes back into print so I can purchase a copy for myself. I have check out the library copy twice so I can relive Manse Everard's adventures before reading "Shield of Time" which is the sequel. Now if I can just find the Time Patrol Office in this milieu.

Rating:
Summary: time travel will never be the same after this!
Review: Ever wondered what kind of complex moral issues the average time traveler can run up against? Read of Unattatched Manse Everard's travels and you'll soon find out! Why is it wrong for some travelers to get married?(hint, read the book) or to have children(hint 2,read the book). Its worse than opening a Pandora's box of morals and ethics! This book will give some teachers of Philosophy,some good issues to chew on, as well as their students! Don't get discouraged though! There's a lot of good that can be encouraged! And a lot of rules that can get bent too! Ever wonder how Danellians came up with some of these rules? Read the book and find out!

Rating:
Summary: Not just another time travel book
Review: Poul Anderson does a terrific job of exploring the possibilities and problems of time travel. The man has a knack for history and sociology. He gets deep into the nitty gritty of daily life in the periods his hero visits in a way not many authors do. He explores obscure, out of the way pockets of time and takes you on a fascinating journey up the threads of time to see how events play one upon another. The Time Patrol stories and the "Trader to the Stars" stories were the ones that hooked me on Anderson years ago. What a wonderful story teller!.................Tom Kin

Rating:
Summary: Time Police, alternate histories, egoistic villains- oh, my!
Review: The Time Patrol is a very readable compilation of stories and novelettes about what is essentially a time travel police agency. The series centers on the Unattached Agent Manse Everard - an American recruited by the agency in 1954. The stories feature a variety of fairly accurate milieus, but the series' greatest asset and greatest flaw is the complex, confusing laws and requisitions concerning time travel. The rules basically state: the time-space continuum is elastic - it returns to its normal state given enough time; when the timeline is disrupted with great vehemency or someone happens to change a key event, time changes occur immediately; if the change is drastic enough, everything "up-time" of the incident vanishes and is replaced by an alternate time-line following the logical consequences of the disruption. That's where the agents of the Time Patrol come in - they have to return the timeline to its original design by preventing the disrupting event. This is when the complexities kick in: since the agents' actions are monitored by the agency, each part of the event - including the agents' success, is already documented. And if the correction meets failure, why doesn't the patrol send agent after agent until it is corrected? There are numerous other details too convoluted to mention.

In several of the stories the dialog degenerates into simplistic monologs, and the narration gains an almost derisive sing-song quality to it. You've been forewarned.