The Original Trilogy and Other Stories, edited by Mike Ashley. British Library, 2020, 287 p. Reviewed for Interzone 290-291, Summer 2021.
This British Library reprint, subtitled “The Original Trilogy and Other Stories” contains five novellas first published in 1961 and 1962. The “time” trilogy was collected as Times without Number shortly after then. Its three stories are set around the four-hundredth anniversary of the victory of the Duke of Parma’s Armada over the English fleet when a (Catholic) Spanish Empire – centred on the British Isles – of which our protagonist Don Miguel Navarro, a licentiate of the powerful Society of Time, is a citizen, is at its peak. These are, then, tales of Altered History, with place names such as Jorque and Londres
Curiously we are told Spain itself has been reconquered by “virile” Islam but nothing more is made of this. The Empire’s main rival is instead a Confederacy of Northern European states. The Society of Time controls the time travel machines of the Empire (“Borromeo showed us how we might rotate the dimensions of substances so that the worlds became flat and we could voyage back into time,”) and has rigorous rules to prevent interference with History. A similar organisation in the Confederacy acts likewise. The Islamic powers we must assume to have no time travel capability. All three stories centre round the inevitable (otherwise no story) floutings of these interference protocols. Miguel, a rather correctly behaved individual, is also shocked by other infractions the Society’s members condone, such as pandering.
In the first novella, Spoil of Yesterday, Miguel immediately recognises a work of Art as an illegal import from the past and arrests its owner. The breach is resolved by a trip to the past to replace it immediately after its removal, but the reader does not take this time trip with Miguel, is only told of it. In the second, The Word not Written, Miguel finds that prominent members of the Society actively explore ruptures in time when an argument between them is attempted to be settled by allowing female warriors from a time which would not have occurred bar interference to come to their present, with disastrous results. Again, only a trip back to the past, again unseen, restores the status quo ante. Only Miguel and his confessor retain memories of the infringement. In The Fullness of Time, in retrospect a cunning title, we do finally accompany Miguel to the past. The Empire’s exploitation of the mineral resources of its lands in the New World is protected by the (carefully worded, so as to avoid any possible contravention) Treaty of Prague between it and the Confederacy. Evidence has been found of the Confederacy using its time travel capability to mine in the past where it had no right to. While (in a nod to what actually happened in the reader’s world) recognising that without the Empire the natives of the New World might have been ground between the interests of competing European nations, Miguel’s companion, a Mohawk, resents the Empire’s intrusions on the natives’ ancient lands, despite his tribe becoming a leading light in Empire circles. It is his interference in the past which drives the story and ultimately ensures there will be no more Don Miguel tales.
This is all still very readable, though Brunner’s writing occasionally lapses into cliché, the characterisation is sometimes rudimentary, and there is a rather awkward portrayal of sexual roles and attitudes.
The other two novellas are stand-alones which arguably do not belong with the trilogy though editor Mike Ashley’s introduction says Brunner was at his best at novella length.
In Father of Lies a small area of England is on no maps and technology breaks down when it is entered. Miles Croton is part of a group investigating the phenomenon and penetrates the anomaly on foot after his car will no longer work. He almost straight away sees a dragon from whom he soon has to rescue a naked woman tied to a stake and finds he has entered a world based on mythology (mainly but not exclusively Arthurian.) While this might seem like a fantasy scenario Brunner supplies a rational explanation for them.
The Analysts by contrast is a tale of unusual architecture. Joel Sackstone can visualise from a drawing how a building will be experienced by its inhabitants and as such has been crucial to his firm’s success. A new project baffles him by its design – on which the clients are irrevocably set – seeming to lead people in a direction that isn’t there. In amongst all this oddness Brunner managed to include some asides on sexual and racial politics.
The following did not appear in the published review:- contains the phraseology of the time eg coloured for black.
Pedant’s corner:- “two capital L’s” (strictly speaking the plural is ‘two capitals L’, but that is not how people say it,) focussed (focused,) “if there was anything more undignified than a Licentiate could do” (if there was anything more undignified that a Licentiate could do,) “once for all” (once and for all,) “landing astraddle of the branch” (landing astraddle the branch,) staunch (stanch,) “that all was not well” (that not all was well,) a full stop where there ought to have been a comma, “ten year ago” (years.)
