Veering In The Vastness

Several long sequences of posts on this blog have been united by their focus on a particular sub-set of Poul Anderson's works, like:

the King of Ys Tetralogy (with Karen Anderson);
Anderson's many other works set in the past;
the Harvest of Stars Tetralogy;
the Technic Civilization History;
the diverse though overlapping contents of many short story collections -

- but the blogger is at any time free to veer off in some other direction.

Which works do get blogged about is a function of (i) which works are in my possession and (ii) which of these are easily to hand at any given time.

Regarding (i), some books that I did not have are being bought online. The next to arrive should be the first of Anderson's detective novels. Regarding (ii), many books by Anderson and others have been moved from a cellar to an upstairs room where they have yet to be shelved properly and, in any case, they overflow the available shelf space. Anderson books, when looked for, have a consistent knack of not being found where it is thought that they should be.

Thus, having reread several collections and not knowing which of the remaining collections to address next but needing to pick a book in haste, I looked instead for two novels, Planet Of No Return and The Byworlder, only to have the all too familiar experience of not being able to find either of them. These should not have wandered far so should come to light and, if they did not, could presumably be acquired second hand.

Meanwhile, however, I picked up The Peregrine as an alternative, have since posted about it and now intend to finish rereading this novel so will probably post some more. Thus, blogging continues if not always predictably.

I mention all this because I think that the academic practice of identifying each volume by its title followed by its place and date of publication can generate the impression that an author's complete works exist in some ideal realm where they remain perennially accessible whereas the un-Platonic reality is that they in fact exist only as manifested in physical copies and that the unavailability of such a copy is an insuperable obstacle to any attempt to read or refer to them!

So some sort of time-consuming effort is involved not only in acquiring but also in keeping track off the relevant works. This struggle continues.