Connections

The diverse installments collected in The Van Rijn Method (see previous post) are pulled together not by any single narrative thread but by multiple interconnections:

two of the eleven installments are about Ythrians;

three are about Nicholas van Rijn;

another installment, "Esau," is about a one-off character, Emil Dalmady, but shows Dalmady in conversation with his employer, van Rijn;

two are about David Falkayn;

the first Falkayn story, "The Three-Cornered Wheel," is set on the planet, Ivanhoe, which is also the setting of "The Season of Forgiveness";

in the second Falkayn story, "A Sun Invisible," Falkayn has started to work for van Rijn's company, Solar Spice & Liquors;

the first Ythrian story, "Wings of Victory," mentions Hermes, Falkayn's home planet, and also Woden, home planet of Adzel who appears in "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson."

Thus, directly or indirectly, ten of the eleven installments are interconnected. There are even more connections with later volumes of The Technic Civilization Saga but here we are focusing only on Volume I.

Jim Ching reflects wistfully:

"(Oh, treetop highways under the golden-red sun of Cynthia! Four-armed drummers who sound the mating call of Gorzun's twin moons! Wild wings above Ythri!)"

-Poul Anderson, "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 175-197 AT 183.

We read about Cynthia, Gorzun and Ythri. So far, Jim also has only heard or read about these planets. Thus, he speaks for the readers when he wishes that he could visit them. Maybe this is a taste of metafiction.