Thursday 23 March 2023

A Pivotal Story

The most utterly pivotal story in Poul Anderson's Technic History has to be "The Star Plunderer," recounting as it does the transition from the Time of Troubles to the Terran Empire. Before the Troubles were the Solar Commonwealth and the Polesotechnic League. After this story is the early Empire incorporating planets successfully in "Sargasso of Lost Starships" and unsuccessfully in The People Of The Wind.

Also pivotal is "Lodestar":

written for Astounding: John W. Campbell Memorial Anthology;

the last Polesotechnic League story in The Earth Book Of Stormgate;

thus, also, the last League story to be read in the original reading order of the Technic History;

the last story in The Technic History Saga, Volume II, David Falkayn: Star Trader, where it is followed by an Afterword in which its author describes it as the ending of a saga although instead it wound up being the prequel to the concluding League novel, Mirkheim.

Interruption: more later.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

You're right, "The Star Plunderer" is an utterly pivotal story! The anarchy of the Time of Troubles was causing Technic Civilization to crash its way down to complete ruin. It was sheer accident that Manuel Argos was captured by the Gorzuni AND had the wit, ability, and daring to use that as the beginning of his rise to power and the founding of the Empire.

Ad astra! Sean