Lodestar V

(Back from Sunday afternoon cricket.)

Poul Anderson's "Lodestar":

involves Ythrians;
thus, harks back to "Wings of Victory," the first story in The Earth Book Of Stormgate and second in the History of Technic Civilization;
refers to the human colony planet, Lochlann;
thus, anticipates "The Night Face" and "The Sharing of Flesh," the third last and second last stories respectively in the History, set long after the period of the Earth Book;
concludes the trader team series - although the team is briefly reassembled in a sequel, Mirkheim;
shows a fundamental problem in the Polesotechnic League and David Falkayn's response to it;
sets the scene for the climactic conflicts of Mirkheim, the last work about the League.

Thus, "Lodestar," looking both backwards and forwards, epitomizes the kind of inter-textual connectivity that binds otherwise disparate sf novels and stories into a future history.