Vol VI, Avalon And Empire
"Wingless"
"Rescue on Avalon"
"The Star Plunderer"
"Sargasso of Lost Starships"
Vol XII, Captain Flandry I
"Tiger by the Tail"
"Honorable Enemies"
"The Game of Glory"
"Hunters of the Sky Cave"
Vol XVII, After The Empire (or The Post-Imperial Age)
"A Tragedy of Errors"
"The Night Face"
"The Sharing of Flesh"
"Starfog"
These volumes are, respectively, pre-Flandry, Flandry and post-Flandry. Despite their obvious similarities, there are considerable differences between them.
Vol VI comprises a planet Avalon diptych and an early Terran Empire diptych. (To be more precise, the founding of the Empire is proclaimed at the end of "The Star Plunderer.") The two diptychs differ in length, content, target audience and dates of publication. The Empire stories are pulp sf, 1952, whereas the Avalon stories are juvenile sf, 1973. However, the four stories read in sequence present a perfect prelude to Vol VII, The People Of The Wind (1973), in which the Empire attacks Avalon.
The four stories in Vol XII have a continuing central character and present just one period of his career. Further, the second, third and fourth stories each explicitly refer back to the previous installment. Thus, this volume is a unified tetralogy. The following volume, Vol XIII, Captain Flandry II, would comprise the diptych, "A Message in Secret" and "A Plague of Masters," in which, again, the second installment is a direct sequel to the first.
The stories in Vol XVII, set in different centuries, are united mainly by the fact that the centuries in which they are set are all long after the Fall of the Empire, but there is also a similarity of content. In each, a human-crewed spaceship interacts with a planetary population that has long been isolated from the human mainstream - a Star Trek scenario, except that these populations are descendants of human colonists, not humanoid aliens.
In "The Sharing of Flesh," the Allied planets spaceship New Dawn, not the USS Enterprise, is in orbit around Lokon (see here). New Dawn crew members have descended in a boat, not by teleportation. The problem to be solved is why the Lokonese universally practice cannibalism. The computer, summarizing relevant data, mentions ceremonial cannibalism but does not refer to communion in which participants are believed to receive divine grace by consuming the body of their deity.
Jerusalem Catholicism still existed before the Empire fell but we are not told about any religions post-Empire.
2 comments:
Hi, Paul!
I agree that your proposed Volume VI, AVALON AND EMPIRE, contains two of the pulp SF stories Poul Anderson wrote for PLANET STORIES along with two later juvenile stories. My thought was that comparing "Plunderer" and "Sargasso" with the two later stories will show interesting contrasts in how Anderon wrote at different times of his career.
I do argue, however, that it's an error to say Manuel Argos PROCLAIMED the foundation of the Terran Empire in "Plunderer." It's more accurate to say he discussed how he PLANNED to found the Empire in that story.
Also, you made a small mistake in listing the contents of your proposed Volume XVII, "A Comedy of Errors" was a mistake. You meant "A TRAGEDY of Errors."
And we do see some evidence for the existence of RELIGONS, at least, in the post Imperial age. "The Sharing of Flesh" has one character exclaiming "In God's name," and another thinking of how she wants to bring up her child in the ways her "gods" desire.
I also advocate including the original texts of the five Technic History stories Anderson revised as an appendix to your Volume XVII. Because I don't think that either the post Imperial stories or these original texts are long enough to justify them being collected into their own volumes.
Sean
Thank you, Sean. A Tragedy it is.
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