The Year of the Ransom

Time Patrol #3

by Poul Anderson

SF veteran Anderson revives his Time Patrol series for this brisk, intricate tale of crime and pursuit across the centuries. The trouble starts when bandits from the far future stage a raid on the fabulous ransom that Francisco Pizarro demanded in 1533 for the Inca Emperior Atahuallpa. In the confusion, a resourceful conquistador steals a time machine, maroons a Time Patrol agent in the distant past and ends up kidnapping the agent's niece in 1985.

Anderson's mosaic of interlocking episodes allows readers to fit the puzzle together for themselves. He also has some thought-provoking ideas on our own cultural myth of historical progress and on the foolishness and danger of underestimating people from other cultures or eras.

Genres: Science Fiction, Time Travel, Alternate History

169 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1988

About the author

Pseudonym A. A. Craig, Michael Karageorge, Winston P. Sanders, P. A. Kingsley.

Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards.

Anderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1948. He married Karen Kruse in 1953. They had one daughter, Astrid, who is married to science fiction author Greg Bear. Anderson was the sixth President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, taking office in 1972. He was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America, a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. Robert A. Heinlein dedicated his 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls to Anderson and eight of the other members of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy.[2][3]

Poul Anderson died of cancer on July 31, 2001, after a month in the hospital. Several of his novels were published posthumously.


Series:
* Time Patrol
* Psychotechnic League
* Trygve Yamamura
* Harvest of Stars
* King of Ys
* Last Viking
* Hoka
* Future history of the Polesotechnic League
* Flandry

Reviews

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poul Anderson is devoted to good history with his time-travel stories. I cannot stress how much I appreciate this.

He's also thoughtful in his analysis of myth-building and loves to play around with characters that violate and/or confirm those myths while still holding tight to a worldview that can be best described as cautious, allowing for much uncertainty, while also painting a very cool picture of the past. Oh, and there's a pretty nifty plot adding stolen time-travel equipment by the time-natives. :)


One thing I will mention is this: Poul has a major soft spot for the Germanic peoples. The focus is as obvious as it is detailed and there's nothing wrong with that. The good part is in how he unearths so many great, even obscure treasures.

There's so much time travel literature out there. I honestly wish that more of them actually did as good a job with ACTUAL history. Poul Anderson DID. :)

[Bernard Convert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deux textes. Un roman, Stella Maris, un petit peu compliqué à mon goût, sur les guerres entre Germains et Romains dans les marches de l'Empire aux premiers temps du christianisme. Rien ne nous est épargné des relations inextricables entre tous ces peuples, Bataves, Tongres, Bructères, Langobards... Mais l'histoire de la divergence temporelle elle-même est une grande réussite.
Une novella, l'année de la rançon, un "juvenile" passionnant au temps de Pizarro, avec un conquistador haut en couleurs, qui a vite compris les potentialités du voyage dans le temps.