Margins Of Profit III Etc

That last post was cut short by the need to eat a meal. I meant to add not only that the concluding Flandry novels follow a period of civil war and usurpation but also that the splendid Chunderban Desai expounds a theory of "change and decay" on an imperial scale. The feeling of end times  generated in Mirkheim, set during the latter days of the Polesotechnic League, is echoed in the evocatively entitled A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, set during the latter days of the Terran Empire.

But Anderson does not repeat himself, at least not in this series. The later problems of imperial decadence are not the earlier problems of state/monopoly capitalism and the two periods differ considerably in tone.

Desai is a native of Ramanujan, as is van Rijn's captain in the first story of Trader To The Stars. Van Rijn's companion in the second story in that collection is from Esperance which we see in The People Of The Wind. An ensign in the third and last story in Trader To The Stars is from Nuevo Mexico, as are the Fleet Admiral and his daughter in The People Of The Wind. Many of Anderson's invented planets are re-mentioned although not always remembered until rereading reveals the interconnections between background details of different works.

The second story in Trader To The Stars, "Territory," presents an extremely elaborate, even for Anderson, explanation of its fictitious planet's environmental features and ecological problems. I will shortly summarize one character's account to van Rijn in the hope of making this clearer at least to myself.

The original version of "Margin of Profit," already discussed, is included as an appendix to the online edition of Baen Book's The Van Rijn Method. I suggest that, in any printed Complete Works, that original version should be not an appendix to the History but just another item among the Complete Short Stories, where it could be regarded as a non-series work that is set in a timeline different from although similar to that of the History.

Alternatively, since Anderson made some, lesser, revisions to the shorter Flandry works, there could be an Alternative Technic History Volume in which the original "Margin of Profit" would be followed by the original Flandry stories, one of which does refer back to van Rijn - unless, of course, that story was not among those revised.

This is a bigger issue with James Blish whose Complete Works would definitely have to include a volume of the original, shorter versions of several works.