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 ...

Storyline: 4/5Characters: 2/5Writing Style: 2/5World: 4/5What 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 ...

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...

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 entertainin...

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 pe...

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 ...

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...

“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 un...

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.

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 en...