Wednesday 13 May 2020

What Is Next For The Blog?

Since the beginning of December, I have reread Poul Anderson's two main future history series, the Technic and Psychotechnic Histories. The only Psychotechnic installment as yet not reread even in part is "The Troublemakers." I have just reread with interest my earlier summary and analysis of this story. See Early Interstellar Travel II. The first post specifically about "The Troublemakers" was In The Slower Than Light Ship. I think that I have exhausted that story at least for a while.

Maybe next to be revisited is the Old Phoenix multiverse, starting not with its opening volume, Three Hearts And Three Lions ((1961), but with Operation Chaos, a collection of stories dated 1956, 1957, 1959 and 1969.

Also published in 1956 was Anderson's first Nicholas van Rijn story, "Margin of Profit," part of his Technic History. As we keep reminding ourselves, van Rijn visited the fantasy setting of the Old Phoenix in one short story. Anderson not only wrote excellent works of fantasy and sf but also intriguingly allowed these two genres to overlap slightly in his fictional multiverse.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And we see Old Nick amazed when Albert Einstein walked into the Old Phoenix in "House Rule." And it was perhaps wise of Anderson not to have Nicholas van Rijn SAYING anything in that story. Because that might have led to complications making it difficult to integrate anything the Polesotechnarch said in that interuniversal inn with the Technic timeline.

Ad astra! Sean