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A carregar... Paratimepor H. Beam Piper
Books Read in 2015 (2,733) Books Read in 2013 (1,205) A carregar...
Adira ao LibraryThing para descobrir se irá gostar deste livro. Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro. Con le avventure dell'eroe errante delle dimensioni parallele si avrà una conferma del talento di H. Beam Piper per l'intreccio e per le situazioni anomale. Sarà una cavalcata che comincia con l'incredibile impresa dell'uomo che "passò intorno ai cavalli", proseguendo poi con una straordinaria operazione di polizia, con la caccia all'ultimo nemico e un crimine nel tempio. Se infiniti mondi equivalgono a infiniti problemi, la Polizia Paratemporale è qui per risolverli: dove "qui" significa soprattutto Altrove. http://www.fireandsword.com/Reviews/paratime.html Time travel and alternate universes were a principle interest of H. Beam Piper. Granted they didn’t involve self-sacrificing saving & loan managers (we used to have lots of ‘em in Texas), but something a bit more hard-boiled. Piper created an entire cosmology of them in his Paratime series, it’s not a spoiler to tell you the world we know is just one of them, in fact a rather barbaric and dull one. sem críticas | adicionar uma crítica
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The Paratime series of several stories dealing with an advanced civilization that is able to travel between parallel universes with alternate histories. It uses that ability to trade for goods and services that their exhausted Earth cannot provide. Stories included are: He Walked Around the Horses, Police Operation, Last Enemy, Temple Trouble, Genesis, Time Crime. Henry Beam Piper was an American science fiction author best known for his extensive Terro-Human Future History series of stories and a shorter series of Paratime alternate history tales. Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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Google Books — A carregar... GénerosSistema Decimal de Melvil (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999Classificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos EUA (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
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“Introduction”, John F. Carr -- A long and detailed introduction to Piper and his Paratime series. Carr gives a very brief summary of Piper’s life, but he mostly details how Piper’s belief in volitional reincarnation (essentially, being sentient between physical incarnations and being able to choose your next body) and interest in the theory of time put forth by one J. W. Dunne were combined for his Paratime series. Dunne’s theories held that a person’s “supermind” existed outside and apart from a person’s entire life. He also postulated a “supertime” which measured the rate other “times” pass, an infinite number of them. The supermind exists at all points in a person’s life. It exists outside the life. It’s rather (Carr doesn’t note this) like Boethius’ notion of God existing outside of time thereby explaining how he knows the future without causing it. Dunne’s supermind becomes detached, when we are unconscious, from our “ego”. This explains recovered memories and precognitive visions. Piper seemingly combined these notions to conceive of a vast series of parallel worlds that peoples superminds can hop from line to line on. Piper’s interest and knowledge of history came into play in conceiving this series in which alternate histories are the central feature. He created a classification system for his multitude of worlds. The most interesting part of his alternate histories is that their basic grouping is based on how successful the Martian attempt to colonize Earth was 75,000 to 100,000 years ago. In some worlds, it succeeds entirely. In others the colony regresses, and the people of Earth forget their origin (our world belongs in this category) and in others the Martians all die out, and quasi-humans evolve a civilization on Earth. Carr also presents pretty conclusive proof that attempts to link the Paratime series (which also includes Piper’s Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen) with Piper’s Terrohuman Future History series are misguided.
“He Walked Around the Horses”, H. Beam Piper -- This story was the motivation for reading this collection since it was inspired by an incident mentioned in a Charles Fort book: the disappearance of Benjamin Bathurst, British envoy to the Austrian Empire, in November 1809 as he walked around some coach horses to inspect them. Disappointingly, Piper simply snatches Bathurst up and transplants him to an alternate Europe of 1809 without rationalizing the mechanism by which this is done. Still, Piper presents an interesting alternate Europe without Napoleon (though there is a Napoleon Bonaparte, he’s just a “brilliant military theoretician” who is loyal to the French crown).. The deviation seems to start with Benedict Arnold’s death at the Battle of Quebec in January 1776. He is not there to help win the Battle of Saratoga (thus Piper reminds us that Arnold contributed greatly to the cause he later betrayed), and the Revolution fails (George Washington dies at the Battle of Doylestown though no year is given). The European consequences is that, lacking the inspiration of an American Republic, the French Revolution does not take place, and Napoleon does not become a would-be conqueror.
“Police Operation”, H. Beam Piper -- Even more than Piper’s “He Walked Around the Horses” this story was inspired by Charles Fort since it opens with a quote from Fort’s Lo!. The quote deals with the notion of an “occult police force” which covers up the work of occult mischief makers so Earth can be exploited systematically by other occult forces. Here the character of Verkan Vall, assistant to the Chief of Paratime Police, is introduced as he cleans up the traces left by a Venusian nighthound accidentally loosed upon the Pennsylvania of our world.
“Last Enemy”, H. Beam Piper -- This story reminded me, in its speculative topic, of Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination. Both stories start out assuming the existence of a rather paranormal topic (teleporation in the Bester novel, reincarnation here) and depict how societies would be affected. Here, Piper presents a society where reincarnation has been proven to be a fact, and its reality is in the very marrow of its inhabitants (They talk not of killing or murdering someone but of “discarnating” them. They also have public suicide parties.). The dispute lies between the Statisticalists and Volitionists. Each have different notions of the state of consciousness of a soul between reincarnations, the availability of past memories, and how a particular soul comes to inhabit a particular body. Volitionists believe that a soul retains sentience between incarnations and can choose its next body. Statisticalists believe the soul is in a dreamlike slumber between bodies and lands in a body at random. Each side has a particular political agenda. The Statisticalists are egalitarian leftists, socialists who think that society should be made as equal as possible so a person is penalized at each reincarnation. For reasons not entirely clear, the Volitionists practice a laissez-faire attitude (presumbably, though Piper never makes this entirely clear, they think personal traits of worth will result in a person choosing a good reincarnation). Definite scientific proof of the Volitionists stand is found in this Second Level world (the Second Level worlds are, in some ways, more technologically advanced than the First Level world of the Paratime Police), and their society begins to unravel. (Not only is Piper personally on the side of the Volitionists in regard to their view of reincarnation, but the makes his sympathies quite clear for free markets and limited government. The Chief of the Paratime Police even has a humorous, though confused remark, when he says that the Holy Inquisition is still operating on the Fourth Level (which includes our world), but calling itself the NKVD now.) Laws and mores about criminal responsibility and inheritance are being challenged in light of the new findings. The plot itself involves rescuing the scientist (and ex-wife of protagonist Verkan Vall) who discovered the truth of the Volitionists' stance. The Society of Assassins was interesting in its abhorrence of violence by non-members and politically motivated violence. However, the story was marred by a couple of things. As with his “Police Operation”, Piper is not good at differentiating and handling a large number of characters at once. Frequently (though this could be because I read the story in a less than conducive environment), I got confused as to who was doing what, and this merged with Piper’s other flaw -- the surprisingly confusing handling of action scenes.
“Time Crime”, H. Beam Piper -- This was, as John F. Carr’s introductory blurb notes, a pretty straightforward police procedural involving the Paratime Police uncovering a slave ring operated by First Level citizens of the highest note. Piper did a good job showing how such an investigation might work given the fact of travel across multiple time tracks -- my favorite technique for localizing the exact time track (since the history and geography of adjacent time tracks are very similar) was hagiography, the study of subtle differences between religions on different time tracks. Piper once again gives us one of those 1950s scientifically managed society (this from an author who seems to have been something of a libertarian).
“Temple Trouble”, H. Beam Piper -- This was an action story (which did not share my complaint of confusing action in other Piper stories in this collection) built around a simple premise -- the rescue of some First Level citizens from the clutches of a nasty, human-sacrificing (by flaying alive) religion on the Fourth Level. The story is mostly interesting because it shows that, unlike other temporal police forces in sf, the Paratime police really have no sort of code against influencing history (because the travel is across time tracks, not back and forth in time on one time track) or manipulating the locals. As long as the secret of Paratime travel is preserved, the one inflexible rule with implications of making sure no anachronistic artifacts full in the hands of the natives of the various time tracks, Paratimers are allowed to wow the locals with bogus religions and miracles. Indeed, in this story, the Paratime employees of a mining company run a local rabbit-sacrificing religion which provides the political control necessary to mine radioactives. Other activities investigated by the Paratime Police are the “flagrantly immoral” activities of slave tradiing and narcotics traffic across time lines and the practice of piracy and brigandage. Verkan Vall wonders, at story’s end, if the divine right of kings was originally initiated for the convenience of kings or priests. It’s interesting to note that it is also mentioned, in this mid-20th century story, that most of the recent wars on the Fourth Level Europo-American sector (our world and similar time tracks) have been partially motivated by the desire to control oil fields. Of course, this story also expresses the typical ‘50s thought that nuclear energy would eventually replace most petroleum use. ( )