In Flandry's Day

"Honorable Enemies."

"In Flandry's day, [the Betelgeuseans'] political position was also one he often wished his own people could occupy." (p.282)

That phase, "In Flandry's day...," generates the impression, if only momentarily, that this story is being narrated in a later period. But who is the narrator and what might we be told of that later period? We read on hoping to learn more although nothing further is said to this effect. We know that we are reading a future history series but it will be a long time before we pass beyond Dominic Flandry's lifetime.

This is the opposite of the narrative mode in Robert Heinlein's Future History, Volume II, The Green Hills Of Earth. In some of these stories, the narrator addresses his readers as fellow members of society living at the time when the stories are set. He reminds them of recent innovations in the orbital arrangements for Earth-Moon travel and also of their knowledge of the words of Rhysling's songs. There is no longer historical perspective.

Heinlein's Future History is sound and substantial but Poul Anderson's Technic History goes way beyond it.