The Shield of Time

"The Shield of Time" is another novel in Poul Anderson's superb "Time Patrol" series. The premise is intriguing: Time travel is discovered in the far future, and history is changeable. Evolved humans from far uptime establish the Time Patrol to prevent time travellers from changing history and preventing the future humans from being created. "The Shield of Time" is three novellas that are loosely linked, and the main protagonist is again Manse Everard, an Unattached agent of the Patrol ("Unattached" means that Everard can be assigned to projects in any era, rather than being a specialist in one particular time.) These stories are all thought-provoking, and as usual take advantage of author Anderson's broad understanding of human history. I found the middle story to be somewhat tedious, and to be honest about it, Wanda Tamberly did not strike me as Time Patrol material, unless the Patrol selects its agents for looks instead of brains. This quibble aside, this is a fine collection of novellas that fans of the Time Patrol series will greatly enjoy. Poul Anderson was a giant of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. As I have noted elsewhere, Anderson died in 2001 and already his body of work is becoming difficult to find. I hope and trust that future republishings will make his work available to future readers.

Though it's billed as Anderson's first novel-length story about the Time Patrol, it's really three novellas strung together. First, agent Manse Everard is in Bactria (today's Afghanistan) in 209 BCE, fight a group called the Exaltationists who are constantly seeking to overthrow the established timeline and establish an alternate history in which they are worshipped as gods, or failing that, to let chaos loose on the universe. Next there's a long sojourn in the Pleistocene, when new Time Patrol recruit Wanda Tamberley is letting her emotions get the better of her judgment in dealing with competing tribes. Finally there's a brisk romp through medieval Europe, restoring the timeline after it has been disrupted by a random event. This was my favorite part of the book. The second part lacked excitement and tended to drag. The first part was good but I really wanted to know more. Where did the Exaltationists come from? How did they come so close to disrupting time in Columbia and Peru? How did a conquistador seize a timecycle, figure out how to use it, and go forward to 1989 California and kidnap Wanda Tamberley? I would really have liked to read these stories but all this action is over before the book even starts. Maybe it is described in some of Anderson's previous Time Patrol stories.Anyway, the book is enjoyable on the whole if you can get over the sometimes tedious middle part.

One of the best in Anderson's long running Time Patrol Series. In this work, Manse Everard rescues history on a grander scale than ever before Anderson attacks the sometimes tedious concept of temporal paradox in a manner that allows the reader to suspend disbelief and enjoy the rich interplay of his characters and the high adventure characteristic of all of Anderson's works.

Unattached Agent Manse Everard has to be the most complex man,part spy for the Time Patrol, and part deep thinker. His struggles on the part of the Patrol to preserve history are an interesting moral and ethical quandry to read. Should agents of the Patrol be allowed to have personal lives ? And what quandries will face them if they do, as Everard falls in love with a field specialist named Wanda Tamberly. Or should he give up all hope of ever again trying to have at least a normal life. One would think that time travel does secretly exist some where, Mr Anderson's writing is so factual and extraordinary.

This was my first Poul Anderson book to read, and I picked it up because my 3-year-old liked the mastadon on the cover. An excellent book dealing with imaginative and purposeful time travel. The storyline is so engrossing and convincingly well-written that this reader felt as if i were living the histories described. This is the job I want if I ever grow up