Stories In Series

When a story is part of a series, we can ask:

(i) How does it stand up as an individual story?
(ii) How does it contribute to the series?

In Robert Heinlein's Future History, several stories are set on the Moon between the death of DD Harriman, "the Man who sold the Moon," and the Prophetic Interregnum. These stories share the common background of this period of the History although none of them advances the History whereas "If This Goes On -" informs us of two history-changing events, first the Interregnum, then the Second American Revolution that overthrows the Prophets and establishes the Covenant which provides the basis for subsequent stories.

Heinlein is relevant to Anderson for several reasons including that:

Anderson modeled his Psychotechnic History directly on the Future History;
Anderson's van Rijn series, Flandry series and several other works grew together into the Technic History which is similar to the Future History but on a vaster spatio-temporal scale.

Rereading and reflecting on Anderson's early story, "Sargasso of Lost Starships," has made me conclude that:

(i) it stands up as a pulp adventure story with imaginative super-powered villains;
(ii) it contributes to the Technic History by introducing two alien races that appear later, by informing us of Manuel I's first two successors and by presenting a period when the Terran Empire has grown large enough to be viable and defensible although not too large to be governed from a central point.

This story, in which the Empire annexes the planet Ansa, is therefore an appropriate intermediate stage between "The Star Plunderer," in which Manuel Argos founds the Empire, and The People Of The Wind, in which the Empire fails to annex the planet Avalon.