We Have Explored

Mirkheim, XI.

See Some Familiar Themes.

One of those familiar themes is narrative points of view. Poul Anderson could have opened this chapter with, e.g.:

"As swift as any vessel in known space, Muddlin' Through reached Earth..."

- but, instead, he wrote:

"As swift as any vessel in that near-infinitesimal droplet of the galaxy which we have slightly explored, Muddlin' Through reached Earth..." (p. 158)

That slightly explored galaxy is yet another recurrent theme. However, on this occasion, we will focus just on the issue of the point of view. I would prefer a first person narrator, in this passage represented by the pronoun, "we," either to remain entirely off-stage or to come more fully on-stage. Hloch introduces himself at the beginning of The Earth Book Of Stormgate. He is an Ythrian of Stormgate Choth living on Avalon shortly after the Terran-Ythrian War. If there is a similar narrator of Mirkheim or of any other Polesotechnic League instalment, then I would like to know who that narrator is as well as where s/he is located. The texts leave us with unanswered questions.

Other parts of the Technic History - the Flandry period, the post-Imperial period and, before them, those parts of the League period that are not directly covered by the Earth Book - would have benefitted from a narrative framework like that of the Earth Book. The single Long Night instalment, "A Tragedy of Errors," begins with an unnamed narrator discussing and speculating about Roan Tom before the narrative proper commences. We sense future historians somewhere in the background of the narratives and would like to see more of them.