Four Decades III

1971-1980

Pre-League

"Wings of Victory" (April, 1972) (Ythrians)

"The Problem of Pain" (February, 1973) (Ythrians)

League Period

"A Little Knowledge" (August, 1971)

"Wingless" (July, 1973) (Ythrians)

"Rescue on Avalon" (1973) (Ythrians)

"Lodestar" (1973) (Falkayn; team; van Rijn; Ythrians)

"The Season of Forgiveness" (December, 1973)

"How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" (1974) (Adzel)

Mirkheim (1977) (Falkayn, team, van Rijn)

Terran Empire

The People Of The Wind (February-April, 1973) (Ythrians)

The Day Of Their Return (1973) (an Ythrian) (Flandry) 

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows (September/October-November/December 1974) (Flandry; Aycharaych))

A Stone In Heaven (1979) (Flandry)

Four Decades II

1961-1970

Polesotechnic League

"Hiding Place" (March, 1961) (van Rijn)

"Territory" (June, 1963) (van Rijn)

"The Three-Cornered Wheel" (October, 1963) (Falkayn)

"The Master Key" (July, 1964) (van Rijn)

"The Trouble Twisters" (July-August, 1965) (Falkayn; team; van Rijn)

"A Sun Invisible" (April, 1966) (Falkayn)

"Day of Burning" (January, 1967) (Falkayn; team; Merseians)

Satan's World (May-August, 1968 (Falkayn; team; van Rijn)

"Esau" (February, 1970) (van Rijn)

Terran Empire

Ensign Flandry (October, 1966) (Flandry; Ridenour; Merseians)

"Outpost of Empire" (December, 1967) (Ridenour)

The Rebel Worlds (1969) (Flandry)

"The White King's War" (October, 1969) (Flandry)

A Circus Of Hells (1970) (Flandry; Merseians) (incorporates the previous item)

Post-Empire

"Starfog" (August, 1967)

"A Tragedy of Errors" (February, 1968)

"The Sharing of Flesh" (December, 1968)

Observations

This decade is more straightforward:

van Rijn continues;

he employs and works with the trader team led by Falkayn;

Flandry's earlier career is recounted;

there are sixteen instalments, not counting "The White King's War";

that leaves thirteen more instalments to be accounted for in the remaining complete decade which we will probably not consider this evening! 

Four Decades

Because we count from 1 to 10, not from 0 to 9, we should count a decade, century or millennium from a year ending -1 to a year ending -0. Thus, four decades in the second half of the twentieth century were:

1951-1960

1961-1970

1971-1980

1981-1990

These were the decades during which Poul Anderson wrote his History of Technic Civilization.

(Because I was born on 1 January, 1949, these decades were also when I was reading sf, starting with comic strips in the 50's, then with paperbacks in the 60's. All those past futures...)

However, only two Technic History instalments were published in the 80's:

"The Saturn Game" (1981), which, in terms of the fictional chronology of the series, is the earliest episode;

The Game Of Empire (1985), which is the last novel to feature Dominic Flandry and the fifth last instalment in the series.

1951-1960

In this decade, there was a Terran Empire series and a Polesotechnic League series which had not yet coalesced into a single Technic History series.

Terran Empire

"The Star Plunderer" (September, 1952) (pre-Empire; Manuel Argos)

"Sargasso of Lost Starships" (January, 1952)  (post-Argos; pre-Flandry)

"Tiger by the Tail" (January, 1951) (Flandry)

"Honorable Enemies" (May, 1951) (Flandry; Aycharaych)

"The Warriors from Nowhere" (Summer, 1954) (Flandry; Chives)

"The Game of Glory" (March, 1958) (Flandry)

"A Handful of Stars" (June, 1959) (Flandry; Aycharaych)

"A Message in Secret" (December, 1959) (Flandry)

"A Plague of Masters" (December, 1960-January, 1961) (Flandry)

"A Twelvemonth and a Day" (January, 1960) (post-Empire)

Some Observations So Far

To reflect the fictional chronological order, I have listed the two pre-Flandry stories first and the single post-Empire story last. However, apart from that, everything else is in publication order. In that order, the series begins appropriately with the first published Captain Flandry story in January, 1951, and ends in December, 1960 - albeit running over into January, 1961.

There are ten instalments of a four-period future history series. The Captain Flandry series is almost complete, lacking only its concluding novel, A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows (1974), later expansions to "A Message in Secret" and "A Handful of Stars" and later revisions to "Tiger by the Tail," "Honorable Enemies" and "The Warriors from Nowhere." The single post-Empire story will be expanded and re-entitled in 1963 and re-entitled again in 1978. This information is complicated to summarize.

The Polesotechnic League

"Margin of Profit" (September, 1956) (van Rijn)

The Man Who Counts (February-April, 1958) (van Rijn)

Some Further Observations

So far, the Polesotechnic League series comprises only two instalments about Nicholas van Rijn. But these two main characters of the Technic History, Flandry and van Rijn, have both been introduced in the 1950's.

When "Margin of Profit" is incorporated into the Technic History, it has been revised and is no longer the opening instalment. Instead, it is preceded by one story published in 1981 and by two others published in 1973 and is also contemporaneous with yet another published in 1973. It is not only the first van Rijn story but also part of something much longer and vaster. 

Twelve instalments published in the first decade and two in the 1980's leaves twenty-nine instalments that were published in the two intervening decades. Will we also analyze those decades?

Important Events Published In The 1960's

League and Empire become a single series.

David Falkayn and the trader team are introduced.

The Flandry series expands backwards from "Captain Flandry."

Important Event In The 1970's

The Ythrians are introduced.

The Polesotechnic League series concludes.

The Flandry series expands forwards.

I wrote in the preceding post that the League and Empire series were first linked in "A Plague of Masters" in 1961. In fact, "A Plague of Masters" was first published as a book under the alternative title, Earthman, Go Home!, in 1961 but had previously been serialized in December, 1960-January, 1961, so maybe the League-Empire link was published at the end of 1960 rather than at the beginning of 1961?

Merseians In The Empire And League Periods

Merseians were introduced as a collective space opera villain in the second Captain Flandry story, "Honorable Enemies," in 1951.

Dominic Flandry visits Merseia in his first novel, Ensign Flandry, published in 1966.

David Falkayn and the trader team visit Merseia in "Supernova"/"Day of Burning," published in 1967.

Thus, in the late 1960's, Poul Anderson was both expanding his Flandry series and linking it to his Polesotechnic League series. That linkage had been initiated by a single reference in the Captain Flandry story, "A Plague of Masters," in 1961.

The third element of the Technic History, the Ythrians, was not introduced until "Wings of Victory" in 1972 and its remaining instalments were all published in 1973 except for the omnibus The Earth Book Of Stormgate which was published in 1978.

I ought to have more to say about this but it is getting late here.

Unexpected Holmes

However well written, even the best detective fiction has its limitations when compared with the best of sf. It becomes like a crossword puzzle when the detective explains how the crime was committed, what the clues were etc. Sf can incorporate detective fiction but not vice versa.

We recently acquired Colin Dexter's thirteen Inspector Morse novels and have now added Dexter's single collection which contains six Morse stories and five others including (I now discover) one about Sherlock and Mycroft narrated by Watson! Unexpected. And a very tenuous connection to Poul Anderson: not only howling wind and beating rain and detective fiction but also, more specifically, an appearance by Sherlock Holmes.

Sheila is at one of her choirs and I am about to go to Zen.

Publication Histories II

 

Asked to write a story for an original juvenile sf anthology, Poul Anderson wrote about a human-Ythrian interaction on Avalon.

Asked to write a story for another such anthology, he wrote about Adzel's student days on Earth which had already been alluded to when Adzel was introduced in the third David Falkayn story which was also the first trader team story.

For Boys' Life, he wrote about another Avalonian human-Ythrian interaction, this time involving David Falkayn's grandson, and also about Christmas on the planet Ivanhoe which Falkayn had visited previously.

Asked to contribute to a John W. Campbell memorial anthology, he wrote about Falkayn's confrontation with Nicholas van Rijn in an Ythrian spaceship at Mirkheim.

Asked to contribute a story on the theme of "redemption," he wrote a post-Imperial Technic History instalment.

Thus, the Technic History would have been poorer without these six differently sourced stories.

Publication Histories

Short stories published, and novels serialized, in sf mags can be or become instalments of future history series. John W. Campbell's Astounding/Analog was the starting point for Robert Heinlein's Future History and Poul Anderson's Polesotechnic League series among others. 

Future histories can also incorporate instalments with surprisingly dissimilar publication histories.

Heinlein's Future History

four stories from the Saturday Evening Post

+ one each from:

Argosy

Town and Country

Boy's Life

Blue Book

the American Legion Magazine

Scientific American

(10 out of 24 or so instalments.)

Anderson's Technic History (incorporating the Polesotechnic League)

two from original juvenile sf anthologies edited by Roger Elwood

two from Boy's Life

one from Astounding: The John W. Campbell Memorial Anthology, edited by Harry Harrison

one written for Four For The Future, a themed anthology edited by Harrison, although first published in Galaxy

(6 out of 43 instalments.)

Thus, Elwood, Boy's Life and Harrison between them give us six Technic History instalments. 

A Quick Summary

In Poul Anderson's Technic History, the David Falkayn sub-series becomes the trader team sub-series which merges with the Nicholas van Rijn sub-series, then both merge with the Ythrian sub-series in "Lodestar." Later, David's descendants, first Nat, then Tabitha, are associated with Ythrians. This first part of the Technic History is more multi-faceted than the second part which is more focused on a single individual, Dominic Flandry, although we are also shown some of Flandry's contemporaries, including his daughter, and the longer term consequences both of Flandry's actions in particular and of Technic civilization in general.

This is a quick breakfast post before gym and other activities.

Fair winds forever.

Opening And Closing Paragraphs

The People Of The Wind.

In the opening paragraph, a human father addresses his son. In three short concluding paragraphs, an Ythrian thinks of her human friends.

Opening:

"'You can't leave now,' Daniel Holm told his son. 'Any day we may be at war. We may already be.'" (I, p. 9)

Imminent war grabs our attention. Excitement. Not fear for us since this is fiction. War means change in the lives of individuals and maybe in the life of their society. For some, life is so bad that (they think) any change can only be for the better.

Closing:

"Muscles danced, wings beat, alive to the outermost pinion. The planet spun toward morning. My brother, my sister have found their joy. Let me go seek my own.

"Snowpeaks flamed. The sun stood up in a shout of light.

"High is heaven and holy." (XIX, p. 176)

The aliveness of an Ythrian in flight. Morning. New beginning. Andersonian descriptions: flame; shout of light. A line from a traditional Planha carol quoted earlier in Chapter I - alliterative verse:

High is heaven and holy.

Past History

Imagine if our history were to be recounted in the same style as Poul Anderson's Technic History: 

forty-three fictional narratives spanning fifty thousand years;

two or three long series of novels about prominent historical figures;

several short stories about everyday folk in different periods;

one story about communication problems and conflicts during the Dark Ages;

etc.

Might Anderson's many works set in various prehistorical and historical periods constitute such a series? They might have done if they all been set in (what was thought at the time to have been) the real past. However, these diverse works comprise four distinct genres:

heroic fantasy

historical fantasy

historical fiction

historical science fiction

There are several mutually incompatible sets of time travellers. One timeline has been experienced not by time travellers but by immortals. Odin is a real divine being in some narratives but a myth in others. All of these characters can meet in the inter-universal Old Phoenix but they cannot inhabit a single past history.