The Corridors of time

The Corridors of time is a science fiction novel by the author Poul Anderson.

Reading almost exclusively in english, very few of the stories that I read take place in my home country of Denmark, in fact I think that this is the first one, that I've read, which takes place mostly in Denmark. Well, except for Harry Harrison who sometimes makes small usage of the Danish language (it's nice to see that we are still doing fine, as a culture out there on the star lanes of the future.

Most of The Corridors of Time takes place right before the start of the Bronc Age in what is later to become the part of Denmark called Jutland. Malcolm is an ordinary American, who gets suckered into helping the beautiful Storm, fighting a war that is raging throughout time, up and down the time corridors. Soon Malcolm finds it hard to judge if he is really on the good side, if such a thing exists at all.

As well written as any Poul Anderson book, The Corridors of Time is a nice action piece, but as a time travel story it kind of fails. As the multiple timelines approach wouldn't work, with the story Anderson is trying to tell, he has decided to go with a The Past Can't Be Changed approach, with all the problems this entails. The primary question is of course "why fight up and down time if the past can't be changed?", and the not totally satisfying answer is "because we already did!". Kind of bites itself in the arse doesn't it? Anyway, still worth reading.