Reintroducing The Technic History

"The Problem of Pain" is the second of twelve stories in Poul Anderson's The Earth Book of Stormgate and introduces the planet Avalon which is colonized in the eleventh and twelfth stories in the Earth Book.

In The Technic Civilization Saga, "The Problem of Pain" is the third of eleven stories in Volume I (of VII), there are seven stories in Volume II and Avalon is colonized in the second and third of six stories in Volume III. (Here, "stories" is shorthand for both short stories and novels.)

Although Avalon is discovered early in the Technic History, both the Solar Commonwealth and the Polesotechnic League have to rise and fall before there is sufficient motivation for colonization and the intervening stories record in particular the expansion and decline of the League. Deterioration begins in Satan's World, increases in "A Little Knowledge" and "Lodestar," all in the Saga, Volume II, and climaxes in Mirkheim in Volume III. Many individual stories, each a substantial narrative complete in itself, build a historical process. After the colonization of Avalon, there are three more stories in Volume III and four more volumes in the Saga. OK. Read or reread it!