David Johnson wrote:

> I've not read _Eternity_ but the interwebs tell me Asimov's (linear)
> time travellers there were working to "benefit" humanity. There's none
> of that in Paratime. The "cross-time" travelling Paratimers are
> self-admitted parasites, exploiting other (parallel) timelines for
> their _own_ benefit. They have no interest whatsoever in _helping_ the
> out-timers.

"Benefit" gets refuted in the last pages of End of Eternity. Basically,
it translates to perpetuation of a status quo that ends up in extinction
of the human race.

> Part of this is an artifact of the difference between Asimov's linear
> time travelling and Beam's cross-time travelling. Asimov's travellers
> understand the folks they are encountering elsewhere (elsewhen?) in
> time to be the same "people" as themselves only removed in time.
> That's not the case for the Paratimers. For them, travelling to a
> parallel timeline is sort of like travelling to another world with a
> distinct "people" who are _different_ from themselves. (Thus, Beam is
> using an analogy to the real-world history of European imperialism
> that doesn't "work" in a linear time travel setting like Asimov's.)

Yes, that's how Eternity views time. The Hidden Centuries view time
across multiple dimensions.

> What sparked your wondering about Asimov's yarn?

The linkage in the book of Paratime and Galactic Empire.