In article et,
Tanada wrote:



Lord Calvin of Other when is an awesome book. It's the only Lord Calvin
I've read. Are there more?

I'm trying to remember how the several stories and, IIRC, novels, were
collected, as I originally read them in Analog magazine. I believe
there were two or three books, Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, Styphon's
Revenge, and a third that I don't remember. Again from memory, Piper
was working on something in the series when he committed suicide.

The Lord Kalvan books make slight mention of the Paratime Secret, which
is the framework in which a Pennsylvania State Policeman is cast into
an alternate reality. _Paratime_ is in my library, but there are
others.

It's a fascinating and systematic context, which could have been a
wonderful framework for other writers. Essentially, it's an alternate
probability branching universe, with five major timelines. On the First
Level, civilization formed from a successful migration from Mars to
Earth, with the society retaining all knowledge from an advanced
society. Second Level is _almost_ at the same knowledge level, but
there's one key branch. Third level was, IIRC, a partial failure but
retained some of the Martian knowledge, and Fourth Level doesn't have
any but had developed from civilized folk. In Fifth Level, the
migration totally failed, and any human life developed autonomously in
some branches.

Our society is a Fifth Level branch.

The key difference between First and Second Level is that the First
Level people know the Paratime Secret: the technology to move between
timelines. Generally without exploitation, the First Level people trade
and study with lower-level civilizations. Once in a while, a Paratime
Conveyor accidentally picks up a person and drops him into another
timeline.

In Lord Kalvan, the hero, a history major who became a state policeman,
is transported into an alternate Fifth Level timeline where the
Americas were populated completely across the Bering Strait land
bridge, but Europeans also migrated across the longer-lasting Bridge.
He drops into a skirmish in a timeline in which the technique of making
gunpowder is known only to an evil priesthood. It's not quite the
Paratime Secret, but his knowledge, which he does get a chance to
exploit, is a major social effect. He's thoroughly familiar with the
best of medieval tactics, and also builds an enlightened society.


For those who haven't read the Fuzzy series: Fuzes were little bipeds
that looked somewhat like 2 foot tall Woks (Star Wars series) but they
had small bare faces and huge golden or green eyes, sorta like a cat,
cat like ears and well, I'll have to scan one of the book covers for
you. Hang on...



http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/tanadashoes/album

I hope that works. I cut down a large part of it to get to the main
album page. I made a two picture album with scans from Fuzzy story
covers. I hope they are clear enough. The books have been well read
and loved.

Pam S.