Saturday 20 April 2019

Summaries Completed

The recent summaries of Poul Anderson's Technic History omitted the three opening installments:

interplanetary exploration
first contact with Ythri
Ythrian-human exploration of the planet later jointly colonized as Avalon

The stories about Falkayn's grandson and Jack Birnam address human-Ythrian interactions on Avalon. There are many other interconnections, e.g.:

van Rijn's adventures on Diomedes affect Falkayn's home planet of Hermes;

one of Flandry's pro-Imperial achievements repercusses in the concluding installment when humanity has spread through several spiral arms.

Thus, the lengthy history is a complex unity. We can concentrate on moments or contemplate millennia. Shortly, we will return to van Rijn's adventures on Diomedes.

5 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I think you meant that Flandry's engineering of the exile of Hugh McCormac and many of his followers at the end of THE REBEL WORLDS had "repercussions." Because that led to humans colonizing other arms of the Galaxy.

Seam

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
Correct.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I thought so! But the McCormac emigration could not have been the only large group of humans to go seeking new homes. Refugees fleeing the chaos of the Fall of the Terran Empire must have been another source of humans colonizing other galactic arms.

Sean

Anonymous said...

Re: "repercussions" aka, "No good deed goes unpunished.":
In "Day of Burning" David F. helps Merseia, and we know what they do.
While reading an older blog here, I learned in "Mirkheim" David's Supermetals Corp. helps poor planets, INCLUDING GORZUN, and we also know what they do.
That's two for two, Freeman Falkayn!

-kh

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Keith!

I have thought of the irony of how Falkayn helping Merseia to survive that nearby supernova also meant mankind would face an implacable enemy in a Roidhunate dominated by a racist ideology. But I completely overlooked how GORZUN was one of the "poor" planets assisted by the Supermetals Corporation.

I can only plead in David Falkayn's defense that he could not possibly have known Merseia and Gorzun would have become enemies of Earth. And once the Empire arose Gorzun was defeated and driven back, even becoming an ally of Terra.

Sean