Monday 15 November 2021

How It All Started

There is a skill to writing satisfactory prequels. Some titles seem to serve no purpose other than to prolong a particular named series. We can rely on (early) Robert Heinlein, James Blish and Poul Anderson.

Heinlein...
...wrote "Requiem," about DD Harriman's death on the Moon, then "The Man Who Sold The Moon," about Harriman's financing of the first Moon trip.
 
Blish
In Earthman, Come Home, Okie cities fly between stars propelled and protected by "spindizzy" fields. In the prequel, They Shall Have Stars, a spaceman travels from Earth to Jupiter V in a curiously designed, impossibly fast spaceship. Of course. It is the first spindizzy-powered ship.
 
Anderson
The Young Flandry/The Imperial Stars Trilogy is a prequel to the Captain Flandry series. We watch Flandry learn and mature, e.g., he hears the name, "Aycharaych," but through inexperience misses the chance to learn more.
 
Harvest Of Stars introduces the Lunarians, speaking their own language. The Mother of the Moon chapters of The Stars Are Also Fire show us the first generation of Lunarians growing up and using computers to devise a new language.  

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

You raised an interesting point about Flandry and A CIRCUS OF HELLS. After all, it would have been so easy for Anderson not to have Ydwyr the Seeker even mentioning Aycharaych. But doing so and having Flandry fumble the opportunity, thru inexperience, to learn more made the story extra interesting.

Ad astra! Sean