پلیس زمان

In a fictive universe imagined in eight stories and one novel, time ismutable, and once time travel is discovered, humanity's remotedescendants, the Danellians, set up the Time Patrol to ensure that nochanges to the past will wipe out their own present. This construct(also used in The Shield of Time ) acts as a wonderful vehicle forAnderson's love of history. Manse Everard, whose presence unifies thiscollection, is recruited by the Patrol and rapidly ascends to the rankof roving troubleshooter. Frequently Everard finds that to preserve hisown future he must destroy an alternate one, and his success is madebittersweet by his empathy for people who will never exist except inhis own memory. The writing is excellent, distinguished by Hugo andNebula winner Anderson's skill at weaving a background of sights andsounds to make the stage, and thus the actors, more real. Four of thestories are reprinted from his first Time Patrol collection (1960),four are from more recent volumes, and the novel is new with this book. * Time Patrol [Time Patrol • 1] (1955) / novelette by Poul Anderson: In the mid-20th century Manse Everard answers a job ad and gets hired as a time cop. Time travel will be invented centuries in the future; untold centuries beyond that mankind has evolved into a species called the Danellians, who persuaded the early time travellers to set up the Time Patrol with the aim of protecting all of time from any alteration by interfering temponauts that might risk the Danellians' existence. Manse's first mission is to go back to the late 19th century to correct the circumstances that led to the appearance of an anachronistic item in an old burial mound