Tuesday 8 June 2021

A Future History In Miniature

Compared with Poul Anderson's massive Technic History, his Psychotechnic History is a future history series in miniature:

Trevelyan Micah's sub-series comprises one short story and one novel as against Dominic Flandry's eight volumes;

in the Psychotechnic History, interstellar empires rise and fall between installments whereas, in the Technic History, the Terran Empire is founded at the mid-point of The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume III, and falls between installments in Volume VII;

a single Psychotechnic History story features a disreputable Trader whereas sixteen installments of the Technic History are devoted to the Polesotechnic League.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Even if we subtract the stories I believe to be only questionably part of the Psychotechnic series, the others are too numerous for me to think the Psychotechnic history that "miniature."

Also, by and large I think the Technic stories were simply better written than some of the Psychotechnic tales, because some of the more unsatisfactory stories of the latter group had been written while Anderson was still learning how to write, to find his proper voice as an author.

You seem to have "Teucan" in mind. Actually, I thought that a good story and I appreciated its sardonic ending!

Ad astra! Sean