The Stars Are Also Fire

Poul Anderson's Harvest Of Stars promises a stellar future for organic life and a post-Solar future for inorganic intelligence. What could follow that? Well, the second volume in the series, The Stars Are Also Fire (New York, 1994), after an unnumbered opening chapter set on the colony planet Demeter, presents two alternating narratives:

"The Mother of the Moon," a series of extended flashbacks presented in even numbered Chapters 2-40, is a prequel to Harvest Of Stars;

the remainder of The Stars Are Also Fire, starting with Chapter 1 and ending with Chapter 46, is a sequel to Harvest Of Stars Chapters 1-47 that stays within the Solar System whereas Harvest Of Stars Chapters 48-63 are set in the system of Alpha Centauri.

Thus, the author constructs a future history though not on the original Heinleinian model of several independently published short stories and novels. Several chapters of Harvest Of Stars, differentiated by the recurring title "Database," are extended flashbacks, some to Anson Guthrie's life time. The chronological order of fictitious events is:

(i) Harvest Of Stars, "Database";
(ii) "The Mother of the Moon";
(iii) Harvest Of Stars Chapters 1-47 minus "Database";
(iv) The Stars Are Also Fire minus "The Mother of the Moon";
(v) Harvest Of Stars Chapters 48-63;
(vi) Harvest Of Stars, "Epilogue" (though placed at the beginning);
(vii) the third volume, Harvest The Fire;
(viii) the fourth volume, The Fleet of Stars.

Should the entire series be read in this order? In any series, and particularly in a future history, reading order can part company from publication order. On the other hand, some prequels are designed to be read later. For example, Lunarians are human beings adapted to live and breed in lunar gravity. Having met them in Harvest Of Stars, it makes sense then to read their origin story in "The Mother of the Moon." Incredibly, Guthrie's granddaughter, Dagny Beynac, is the mother of the first Lunarians. We see this new human species grow up, invent its own language ("ARVEN ARDEA NIO LULLUI PEYAR" (p. 132)), construct its stronghold Zamok Vysoki, explore the outer Solar System and rebel against Earth. (Incidentally, in the midst of plausible Earth-Moon politics, Dagny solves a neat murder mystery.)

The part of The Stars Are Also Fire that is not prequel but sequel is set after the Lyudov Rebellion which (we remember) was mentioned in Harvest Of Stars. Again, this is part of how to write a future history. Different works within the history can be linked by common references to a fictitious event whether or not that event gets to be described in any of the works.