What is good about Poul Anderson's Technic History is that it is about people, individual characters, a very large cast of them, and also that it becomes a fictional history but gradually, at an appropriate pace. None of its characters can live from the opening story, set c. 2055, to the concluding story, set c. 7100. There is no equivalent of Lazarus Long, whose lifetime surprised me in Robert Heinlein's Time Chart. Anderson's equivalents of Long appear in other works. Neither immortals nor time travellers belong in the Technic History. Flandry refers to van Rijn but they are sundered by time.
Anderson's two major series, the Technic History and the Time Patrol series, are both about history. The Anderson series that is next in significance, in my opinion, The King Of Ys (with Karen Anderson), is about a historical turning point, the decline of the Roman Empire and the growth of Christianity. The three series address common issues.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I rather regret how the Technic History mentions some characters we never see at all, such as Emperor Georgios. After all, I think it's plain he played a major role in the immediate aftereffects of the Starkad affair. If only by approving and supporting the evacuation of as many as possible of the Tigeries and Sea People of that doomed planet.
Ad astra! Sean
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