Originally Posted by doctorfrog
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Last week I decided that it was time to reread some Moorcock stuff, and found a little surprise package in one of the stories. First I read a collection of shorts that included "Behold the Man", which involves a guy who's obsessed with meeting Jesus travelling back using a time machine. Then last night I started on An Alien Heat, and much to my surprise the same time machine from the short story makes an appearance there as well. Conversation which takes place in that scene makes it clear that's it's the exact same machine, not just one of a similar type. Even though Moorcock is well known for tying all his stories together in one big, annoying continuity, it's still surprising for a couple of reasons. First, there's absolutely nothing else tying the two stories together, so there's nothing to be gained other than having it be fun for a reader to notice it as an Easter egg. Second, it's very unlikely that any given reader would notice it unless they had recently read the other story and had taken note of the time machine's description. Seems like he went through a lot of trouble to include one unimportant detail that most of the audience wouldn't even notice, and which comes from a story published six years previously.
] Kornbluth...), and Peter Siska's University Chemistry, which is surprisingly very, VERY interesting. That is, the whole overview of the development of quantum mechanics. Some real wow moments there. I predict it will get less interesting by the time I get to the whole, well, chemistry thing. Balancing equations and all that. In the meantime, though, it's still awesome.
