Regular readers look out for any clue that a new novel belongs to an existing series. For example, a reference to an alien race of "Merseians" would instantly place any new novel within Anderson's main future history series, the History of Technic Civilisation.
Theoretically, this need not be the case. A fictitious species could inhabit more than one future timeline just as readily as terrestrial human beings do. For example, Lithians and their planet are destroyed in 2050 in James Blish's Trilogy yet still exist millennia later in one of his tetralogies. Nevertheless, an author usually signals that two stories are set in different futures by having the human protagonists of the stories meet different alien species.
This question arises here because For Love And Glory does return to the earlier sf idea of faster than light (FTL) interstellar travel in a multi-species galaxy where at least some extra-solar planets are humanly inhabitable whereas Anderson's other later works, the Harvest Of Stars Tetralogy and Genesis, had featured slower than light (STL) interstellar travel by artificial intelligences encountering very little organic life.
The trailer mentions:
" '...the Orcelin civilization...' " (p. 615);
"...an anthropard from Rikha or a Rikhan colony..." (p. 616);
the planet Gargantua;
Asborg - Sunniva III.
(That last must be either a planet called Asborg which is the third planet of a star called Sunniva or a city called "Asborg" on the third planet etc.)
None of these names is familiar so most probably this new novel exists in its own timeline. Another clue is that the human language spoken is "Anglay," not "Anglic" - as it would have been in the Technic History.
Artifacts left by Forerunners, clearly an earlier space traveling race, are mentioned. There were such forerunners in the Technic History although there they were variously referred to as Foredwellers, Ancients, Elders, Others and Old Shen. Even the use of a slightly different term, "Forerunners," implies that the new novel is set in a different timeline.
The Gargantuan resembles a tyrannosaur which makes him sound like a Wodenite from the Technic History except that the latter are centauroid/quadrupedal. Also, Wodenites appropriately speak in deep, rumbling voices whereas the Garagantuan, called "Karl" for human purposes, speaks inaudibly and communicates through an artificial translator.
Characters in the Technic History often refer to " '...this fraction of a single spiral arm which we have somewhat explored...' " (1) whereas Lissa Davysdaughter Windholm of Asborg reflects that "The galaxy's so huge, so various, and always so mysterious." (2) So maybe Lissa's people have fared further - with faster FTL?
The word "Windholm" occurs in the Technic History but as a place name, not as a surname. Patronymics are familiar from Anderson's Norse fiction. I cannot avoid the impression that familiar story elements are being rearranged somewhat.
(1) Poul Anderson, Flandry's Legacy, Riverdale, NY, 2012, p. 207.
(2) Poul Anderson, Mother Of Kings, New York, 2003, p. 617.
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