Saturday 27 November 2021

The Date Of A History

When is a future history written? Consider the publication dates of the opening installments of Poul Anderson's Technic History:

"The Saturn Game" (1981)
"Wings of Victory" (1972)
"The Problem of Pain" (1973)
"Margin of Profit" (1956; revised 1978)
"How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" (1974)
 
This section of the series was written in the 1970s and '80s although it incorporates a revision of a much earlier text.

Similarly, Dominic Flandry stories, the first two published in 1951, and originally unconnected with van Rijn, were revised at a later date that I have not as yet identified. The Technic History as such did not exist back in the 1950s.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And a big reason, besides talent and ability, for Anderson's success with melding all these originally very disparate stories into a mostly coherent timeline lay in his concentrated attention to details. In the article he wrote for the SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA BULLETIN, Anderson stressed how he gritted his teeth and began writing detailed notes after he impulsively linked the stories about Nicholas van Rijn with those about Dominic Flandry.

Ad astra! Sean