Friday, 2 April 2021

Before And After In The Publication Of The Technic History

Poul Anderson's "A Plague of Masters," which first linked Dominic Flandry back to Nicholas van Rijn and thus initiated Anderson's Technic History, was published in Fantastic, December, 1960-January, 1961, so which of the sixteen Polesotechnic League installments were published before or after those dates?

Before
"Margin of Profit" (1956)
"The Man Who Counts" (1958)

After
"How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" (1974)
"The Three-Cornered Wheel" (1963)
"A Sun Invisible" (1966)
"The Season of Forgiveness" (1973)
"Esau" (1970)
"Hiding Place" (March, 1961)
"Territory" (1963)
"Trader Team" (1965)
"Day of Burning" (1967)
"The Master Key" (1964)
Satan's World (1968)
"A Little Knowledge" (1971)
"Lodestar" (1973)
Mirkheim (1977)
 
Answer: Only the first van Rijn story and the first van Rijn novel were published before.
 
Same question for the other fourteen Flandry Period installments:
 
Before
"Tiger By The Tail" (1951)
"Honorable Enemies" (1951)
"The Game of Glory" (1958)
"A Message in Secret" (1959, but lengthened as Mayday Orbit in 1961)
"A Handful of Stars" (1959)
"The Warriors from Nowhere" (1954)
 
After
Ensign Flandry (1966)
"The White King's War" (1969)
A Circus Of Hells (1970, incorporating "The White King's War")
The Rebel Worlds (1969)
"Outpost of Empire" (1967)
 The Day Of Their Return (1973)
A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows (1974)
A Stone In Heaven (1979)
The Game Of Empire (1985)
 
Answer: Six Captain Flandry installments were published before.
 
Same question for the remaining twelve Technic History installments:
 
Before
"The Star Plunderer" (September, 1952)
"Sargasso of Lost Starships" (January, 1952)
"A Twelvemonth And A Day" (January, 1960, but lengthened as Let The Spacemen Beware! in 1963)
 
After
"The Saturn Game" (1981)
"Wings of Victory" (1972)
"The Problem of Pain" (1973)
"Wingless" (1973)
"Rescue on Avalon" (1973)
The People Of The Wind (1973)
"A Tragedy of Errors" (1968)
"The Sharing of Flesh" (1968)
"Starfog" (1967)
 
Answer: Two early Terran Empire stories and one post-Imperial story were published before.

Note: Every work featuring Ythrians was published in 1973 except one that was published in 1972.

(I have noted month as well as year of publication only when this information seemed relevant.)    

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And the last time, chronologically, that we see a Ythrian was in THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN, which was also first pub. in 1973.

If that illustration of FANTASTIC for Dec. 1960/Jan. 1961 was meant for A PLAGUE OF MASTERS, then I'm not satisfied with it. It does not accurately depict how Dominic Flandry first met Nias Warouw after landing on Unan Besar.

Ad astra! Sean