Inflexure
- by H. L. Gold
- Novelette
- Science Fiction
- Adults
- Definite Time Travel
- English
- “Inflexure” , as by Clyde Crane Campbell, Astounding Stories, October 1934.
A fourth-dimensional phenomenon sweeps through the solar system, causing many centuries to coexist on Earth. Wars over resources kill almost everyone.
—Michael Main
In my time it was June 5, 1942. The only thing that’s certain is that it is summer; the year depends on—well, it depends on what year you were living in when all this happened.
Tags
(18)
- Time Periods
- Circa AD 1700 to 1799: probable time of Washington
- Circa AD 1800 to 1899: time of Lincoln
- Circa AD 1900 to 1929: “Pete Dennis was sent overseas in the beginning of May, 1917, after two weeks of dubious training.”
- Circa AD 1940 to 1949: time of Lanse and Worthing: 1942
- Circa AD 2100 to 2199: “Husse, a twenty-first-century astronomer and physicist”
- Near Future, AD 2300 and Beyond: “These four men, Kant, Bassington, Reede, and Russo, are among the most eminent Einsteinian experts of the twenty-sixth century.”—“thirty-second-century engineers”—et al.
- Unspecified Year: Many of the time periods are not pinned down. “The foremost men of every century were there—foremost in science, that is, because that moment saw the birth of the power of knowledge.”
- Timeline Models
- Real-World Tags
- Abraham Lincoln: “Lincoln’s coarseness of speech and manner, in spite of his adoring biographers’ explanations, were not neglected by satirists and cartoonits.”
- Dinosaurs: “‘Ichthysaurus!’ he screamed.”
- George Washington: “Washington scared little children with his false teeth and brutal muscular development.”
- Mohammed: “For seven days and nights, Ali ibn Ali stayed in the house of the prophet. Then he knew that his host was truly the prophet.”
- Native Americans: “Conical wigwams were gathered around the hill, with trees growing up through them. Indians—he was amazed that he could see so distinctly without his glasses—stood numbly in small groups around their camp.”
- Sundry Extinct Species: possibly eohippus and glyptodons
- World War I: “In France, an unaccountable war was going on. Huge armies of men were intrenched. Poison gases swept over the land.”
- Fictional Tags
- Groupings
Variants
(1)
- “Inflexure” , as by Clyde Crane Campbell, Astounding Stories, October 1934.