"We are scattered so thinly, we who guard the great Pact." (p. 150)
That thought is so familiar from Poul Anderson's Time Patrol series and Technic History that we hardly need to quote any examples. But the next-generation narrator of "The Pirate" takes his time to spell out what this particular great Pact is. When he does, that is this story's climax and the story itself is the culmination of the Psychotechnic History in terms not of the series' own internal fictional chronology but of its author's inputs to it. Series written out of sequence are uneven in quality although we appreciate their indications of creative development. In James Blish's After Such Knowledge Trilogy, Volume II, written last, is undoubtedly the dramatic climax when, as someone said, the theological conflict becomes a brawl. In Anderson's Psychotechnic Hisory, more would have been welcome after "The Pirate."
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
The unevenness found in the Psychotechnic series is because many of those stories belongs to Anderson's early years as a writer, when he was still learning how to write.
Ad astra! Sean
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