"Dahut nodded...
"''Tis Ys,' she answered. 'I'm making Ys.'
"And she did, remarkably well, before she watched the tide come in and wash it away." (Gallicenae, p. 21)
- a tetralogy summarized in a paragraph.
Poul and Karen Anderson's The King Of Ys is a single long narrative in four volumes. Poul Anderson's Harvest Of Stars series is four novels. Anderson's Time Patrol series has grown into two long volumes but could be three collections and one novel.
Ys alternates between historical fiction and historical fantasy.
The Time Patrol is historical science fiction.
Harvest Of Stars is futuristic science fiction.
The Boat Of A Million Years is historical sf and futuristic sf.
However, these four genres do not exhaust Poul Anderson's output:
The Last Viking Trilogy and two other novels are straight historical fiction;
the Trygve Yamamura Trilogy is contemporary detective fiction;
several independent novels are heroic fantasies.
I am currently just past the half way point of rereading Volume II of Ys.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And JRR Tolkien's THE LORD OF THE RINGS is one long novel in three volumes and several appendices. I would suggest LOTR was the model for the multi-volume novels we have seen in the past half century.
And Poul Anderson is also known among SF fans for his Technic Civilization series of stories and novels. Along with Robert Heinlein's some what earlier Future History.
Sean
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