Short Stories 33-35: Mathoms from the Time Closet

Tony Ellis · 13 Jun 2012, 10:45 · from 2012-June.txt.gz

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From: tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com (Tony Ellis)
Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2012 11:45:59 +0100
Subject: (urth) Short Stories 33-35: Mathoms from the Time Closet
Message-ID: <CA+WO8_7GLJJjZ7NGDS+u3r-oMjj7tp=erb2UF6nxxVai0P35Uw at mail.gmail.com>

Mo Holkar wrote:
>Surely if it were really the Gazelle, then the soda bottle's label
>wouldn't be crumbling -- it would be brand new.

I don't know... GW might argue that in the context of Civil War era
America, a stoppered bottle of sticky pop would more realistically
have a crumbly label than a pristine one. He does enjoy that kind of
inversion.

If it is supposed to reflect that the balloon has come adrift in time,
I can?t say I have a big problem with that. Not in a fantasy story. I
have a much bigger problem with someone flying a replica US Civil War
balloon in WWI France, with a bottle of 50-year-old soft drink for
company.

>And NB the narrator specifies that the woman is the passenger, which
>I guess presupposes that someone else, unmentioned, is the pilot.

He says that there was a basket, and ?someone was in it? - singular -
so no, she?s alone. An observation balloon doesn?t have a pilot in any
case: they?re tethered, you just winch them up and down. Googling the
Gazelle I see that they actually used to pull that one along with a
rail car. (Which makes me think of Vance?s wonderful balloon-rail
transport system in The Faceless Man.)

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