Building On Earlier Installments

In Chapter I of Poul Anderson's A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, Dominic Hazeltine, son of Dominic Flandry and Persis d'Io, tells Flandry that human beings from Dennitza in the Taurian Sector may be planning to go over to the Merseians and meanwhile are inciting revolution on Diomedes where insurrectionists also hope to receive help from the Domain of Ythri.

Regular readers are already familiar with Flandry, d'Io, the Taurian Sector, Merseians, Diomedes and Ythri. Thus, here is a good example of an installment of a future history building on earlier installments while also advancing the story line. The two new elements, Hazeltine and Dennitza, are specific to this volume.

A Stone In Heaven introduces Ramnu but re-uses Hermes. The Game Of Empire introduces Imhotep, Daedalus and the Zacharians but reuses the Starkadians, who have been settled on Imhotep, Cynthians, who have a town on Daedalus, and Foredweller ruins, in this case explored by a Wodenite, another race already familiar to us.

Each volume combines the new with the familiar, thus unraveling a history both coherent and dynamic.