Repackaging

OK. I think that this is how to repackage Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization in approximately its original reading order with minimum necessary emendations.

Four Boxed Sets

Box One

Volumes I-IV: The Polesotechnic League Tetralogy

Box Two

Vol V: The Saturn Game And Other Stories

Vol VI: The People Of The Wind

Vol VII: The Earth Book Of Stormgate

 

Box Three

Vols VIII-X: The Young Flandry Trilogy 

Vol XI: "Outpost of Empire" + The Day Of Their Return

Vol XII: a first Flandry collection

 

Box Four 

Vol XIII: a second Flandry collection

Vols XIV-XVI: the last three novels featuring Flandry

Vol XVII: the post-Flandry collection

Contents of the first Flandry collection

"Tiger By The Tail"

"Honorable Enemies"

"The Game of Glory"

"Hunters of the Sky Cave"

Contents of the second Flandry collection

"A Message in Secret"

"A Plague of Masters"

"The Warriors from Nowhere" should either conclude the second collection or become a prologue in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows.

 

In Box Three:

the Young Flandry Trilogy introduces Flandry and mentions Aycharaych;

The Day Of Their Return introduces Aycharaych;

the first collection shows Flandry encountering Aycharaych and later capturing him only to see the Merseians get him back in a prisoner exchange.

In Box Four, the first novel climaxes with the ultimate Flandry-Aycharaych confrontation but the third hints that the latter might return.

The phrase, "a sprawling epic," is truly applicable.