Time Patrolman by Poul Anderson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It just goes to show. Poul Anderson gets REALLY good in his later years. I really, really loved "The Sorrow of Odin".

In the previous tales I read, I had said I thought the characters and the tale were somewhat bloodless. The same cannot be said in this. Indeed, I'm kinda bleeding.

We have a Patrolman going back to the mid 4th century to hunt down Goth and Visigoth legends that had disappeared from history, but he falls in love, loses her, and thanks to practical immortality treatments, follows his children through history, unable to let go.

Mind you, he's still being a proper cop/historian, but the PEOPLE who he keeps visiting have kept note of the Wanderer.

Suffice to say, this is one hell of a tragic tale that's overflowing with real history and a very classic theme that includes the interweaving of myth and religion into SF.

I TOTALLY fell in love with it.


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