From archive (archive) Subject: Re: Time Traveling Summary: secret agent time traveling sub-sub-subgenre: Hamilton Fortune From: throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop) Date: 25 Feb 90 00:14:48 GMT > From: mike@nttor.uucp > I'm surprised that no one has suggested any books by James. P. Hogan. "Thrice upon a Time" seemed much better to me... in fact, I didn't even really finish "The Proteus Operation". Especially the ominous perpetually expanding loop implied at the end... it said several interesting things implicitly, especially to anybody who has read some of the other classics such as "Theory and Practice of Time Travel", and so on. But be that as it may, here's something I consider a minor gem hidden under a pile of muck. In the mid to late sixties, spy stuff (including novels, movies, TV series, plays, saturday morning animation, and probably anything else you can think of) was all the rage, perhaps based on the popularity of the start of the Bond series of movies. In this context, apparently ACE books commissioned a series of potboilers from Larry Maddock. They were about Hannibal Fortune, agent of T.E.R.R.A. Sort of a cross between James Bond and Napolean Solo. They were "The Flying Saucer Gambit", "The Golden Goddess Gambit", "The Emerald Elephant Gambit" and "The Time Trap Gambit". Horrible titles. Horrible superspy cliches. Horribly limited plotting and characterization for the most part. But... but... there was something there, even in the first three. The fourth, despite the silly name, was very good indeed, ***+ or maybe **** on the OtherRealms scale. Of particular interest was the sidekick character. A smallish shapeshifter, it had much of the good dialogue, and certainly supplied some of the best plot twists. Sort of like Ilya Kuriakin upstaged Napolean Solo. For example, just how could shapeshifters fight each other? I seemed to hear an echo of the thinking behind Murdock's notion in some of the Maven Manyshaped episodes (though I suspect they were independently thought of). For another example, are there ecological niches that are not filled on earth because there is no plausible evolutionary path that leads to them? Webly (the sidekick), having access to knowledge of the flora and fauna of many other planets, sometimes took on forms that were very odd indeed, in addition to the fact that he could adapt the best parts of solutions to many different ecological adaptations to solve a local, specific problem. Interesting ideas. And as I said, they got better as they went along. And luckily, they never took themselves too seriously. The most serious (and strangely the most successful) was the last one. If I had to guess, I'd say that ACE decided to ax the series, and so Larry put much more than lighthearted potboiler effort into the last one. It is (I think) quite good. We get to learn a lot more about Hannibal, about his sidekick Webly, and about the organization they work for, (The Temporal Entropy Restructure and Repair Agency, yuck), and why Hannibal was granted the rare Licence to Tamper. In the fourth book, these elements become a bit more than lame props for the current potboiler plot. Wayne-Bob says, checkitout. (If you can find 'em. They probably haven't been in print in years.) -- Wayne Throop !mcnc!rti!sheol!throopw or sheol!throopw@rti.rti.org