(urth) Short Stories 33-35: Mathoms from the Time Closet

[Tony Ellis]

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.)