Bite-Size Books?

Although Baen Books has rightly collected Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization into seven omnibus volumes of equal length, an opposite way to present the series would be in bite-size volumes each to contain only a single novel or at most four short stories. The new reader would thus be introduced to apparently disconnected stories each presenting a few of the essential building blocks for what turns out to be, after several volumes, a substantial fictitious history.

Volume I
"The Saturn Game"
"Wings of Victory"
"The Problem of Pain"
"How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson"

- introducing:

the Jerusalem Catholic Church;
Ythrians;

the planet later called Avalon;
the Polesotechnic League;
Adzel;
references to the planets Cynthia, Gorzun, Woden and Aeneas.

Volume II
"Margin of Profit"
"The Three-Cornered Wheel"
"A Sun Invisible"
"The Season of Forgiveness"

- introducing:

Nicholas van Rijn;
Martians;
David Falkayn;

Falkayn working for van Rijn's Solar Spice & Liquors Company;
the planet Ivanhoe.

Volume III
The Man Who Counts

- introducing:

the planet Diomedes;
van Rijn's disreputable connection with Falkayn's home planet, Hermes.

There are probably more salient details here that I have missed.