Friday 11 December 2015

The Role Of Cross-References

A future history is built on its cross-references. I quoted here a list of "enemies":

Fascist
Nazi
Shintoist
Communist
Atomist
Americanist

and remarked that:

the first three are World War II;
the fourth is Cold War and maybe World War III;
the fifth and sixth must be post -WWIII?

In fact, as I am reminded by rereading the series out of order, the Americanist Party was the collective villain of the preceding installment of the Psychotechnic History - so that is where they came from. The first and second installments are linked by the character of Fourre; the second and third by their common reference to Americanists. In these opening episodes of this future history series, groups with incompatible philosophies fight to determine the course of their future history.

And any series by Poul Anderson has a rich vocabulary.

While investigating the Americanists, the Un-Man "...painted his fingertips with collodoin." (The Psychotechnic League, p. 31)

"...he inserted a few cubic cenitmeters of levinite [?]..." (p. 34)

"He had only time to see the stet-gun [?] within..." (ibid.)

"'Mr. Wade is...Rodney Borrow, Exogene Number -'" (p. 37)

2 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Now I'm wondering, who were the "Atomists" and what did they believe and advocate?

Sean

Paul Shackley said...

Sean,
A very good question. But something has to happen between the installments. "Un-Man" refers to the Years of Hunger and the Years of Madness. The Years of Hunger were shown in "Marius." The Madness must have been between stories.
Merry Christmas!
Paul.