Friday 15 April 2016

Some Common Features

These features, although not in this order, are common to Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization and to Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium History:

invention of a faster than light drive
an extrasolar exodus
a Grand Survey
First Contact with aliens
interstellar conflict
a human interstellar empire
a pre-Imperial regime (Commonwealth, CoDominium)
an individual who makes a difference (Falkayn, Falkenberg)

The FTL drives differ.

Anderson's Terran Empire is described as the First Empire by a later Galactic Archaeological Society and Pournelle has both a First and a Second Empire of Man.

Thus, anyone who has enjoyed either of these series may with interest turn to the other. For me so far, King David's Spaceship is the most colorful volume in the CoDominium History, beginning, like Anderson's "Sargasso of Lost Starships," in an inn on a human colony planet newly incorporated into the Empire.

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