Tuesday 12 September 2017

Nomads, Kith, Okies And Van Rijn

Four kinds of interstellar traders:

the Nomads in Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History live in their faster than light spaceships;

the Kith in Anderson's Kith History live in their slower than light spaceships;

the Okies in James Blish's Cities In Flight live in their faster than light spacefaring flying cities;

Anderson's Nicholas van Rijn lives on Earth and runs his interstellar Solar Spice & Liquors Company from an office.

For the economic basis of the Okies, see here.
For the economic basis of the Polesotechnic League, and thus also of Solar Spice and Liquors, see here.

Nomads and Okies are similar: see here.
There is another group explicitly called "Traders" in the Stellar Union period of the Psychotechnic History: see here.
Nomads are listed with some other sf interstellar traders here.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And Isaac Asimov had people called Traders who featured in FOUNDATION. Merchants using the new, advanced technology of the Foundation to both become rich and extend the power of the First Foundation. Rather weak, really.

Sean