Sunday 28 February 2021

Series In NESFA

Series-wise, the fifth NESFA collection of Poul Anderson's short works contains:

Technic History (6 installments)
Time Patrol (2)
Berserkers (1)
Flying Mountains (1)
Operation Otherworld (1)
Hoka (1)
Psychotechnic History (1)
non-series (8)
 
Too much! So it would be only eight instead of twenty-one stories if all the installments of series were to be removed. I could make the same analysis of other NESFA volumes but am not going to! I think that I found that all three installments of The Star Fox were scattered among other volumes.

The cover illustrations are superb and should be preserved on later editions even if the contents are reorganized.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

In defense of NESFA Press I would say they stated these reprints were not meant to collect series stories in internal chronological order. Also, I have found it interesting to note how some series stories, concentrating here on ORIGINAL texts, have differed from later, revised forms.

That said, I agree there has been too much repetition, which is why I stopped buying these NESFA Press collections after the first six volumes. They should be understood as being most useful for SF readers unfamiliar with Poul Anderson.

Ditto, what you said about the jacket illustrations!

Ad astra! Sean