Monday, 4 September 2023

Multiple Authors And Editors

The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume III, Rise of the Terran Empire, opens with Mirkheim and closes with The People of the Wind. Neither novel is introduced although their contents definitely locate them within Poul Anderson's Technic History. Between the two novels are four short stories, the first and second introduced by Hloch, Compiler of The Earth Book of Stormgate, the third and fourth by future scholars.

Hloch introduces one story written by Judith Dalmady/Lundgren for the periodical, Morgana, and a second by A.A. Craig in his Tales of the Great Frontier.

Donvar Ayeghen, President of the Galactic Archaeological Society, introduces an extract from the Memoirs of Rear Admiral John Henry Reeves, Imperial Solar Navy. Michael Karageorge, a contemporary of Ayeghen, introduces an anonymous document of dubious authenticity. (Behind Karageorge is not Poul Anderson but Hank Davis, Compiler of The Technic Civilization Saga!)

My only point here is that this is a very persuasive volume of future history with multiple authors, editors and perspectives. It could not possibly have been written as a unity but instead grew organically together with the rest of the Technic History. The fictional future historiography reaches its peak and pinnacle in this pivotal volume.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I think we both agreed "Sargasso of Lost Star Ships" would be best understood as a fictional story written centuries after the Empire was founded, and placed in the past. If thought of as a fiction we would not have to force "Sargasso" to be consistent with the other stories.

Ad astra! Sean