Wednesday 28 December 2022

Future Historical Sources II

Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History presents a much shorter list of cited sources:

Enrico Yamatsu, Starward!, described by Sandra Miesel as a "classic history" (Volume 3);

Pilot's Manual, Argus 293 Region;

General Encyclopedic Dictionary;

Diary of Yamagata Tetsuo, Chief of Coordination Service, Argus 293 Region, Stellamont, Nerthus;

the history of the Nomad ships, beginning with the memoirs of Thorkild Erling, Captain of the first Nomad ship, the Traveler.

We read the story of the Traveler both in the short story, "Gypsy," and in a summary when Trevelyan Micah, field agent of the Stellar Union Coordination Service, reads the Nomad history in the library of the Peregrine.

We value Anderson's Technic History as a longer future history series and his Psychotechnic History as a shorter one.

Starward!

5 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Btw, ENSIGN FLANDRY begins with a quote from another PILOT'S MANUAL. The bit quoted from ENSIGN should have been included in your list of Technic historical sources.

Happy New Year! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

That one is in my list.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Oops! I took another look, you are right!

Happy New Year! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

It's interesting that the implications of digitized knowledge-bases were hard for even very bright people to extrapolate before they became common.

I think the concept of factual knowledge being contained in discrete 'books' is going the way of the dodo.

Instead, you just look things up instantly.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

Probably, yes. But I think many people will continue to want books, even hard copy books. Esp. for revered or cherished books--such as the Bible or hard copy editions of one's favorite writers. Anderson might well have listed Shakespeare, Kipling, Chesterton in that last category.

Happy New Year! Sean