Prolificity And The Earth Book II

Peter Berg from Aeneas had an experience on Gray/Avalon.
While on Lucifer, he recounted this experience to a colleague.
The colleague told the story in a private correspondence back on Earth.
The recipient's heirs preserved the correspondence.
A visiting historian acquired a copy.
A transcription was placed in the archives of the University of Fleurville on the planet Esperance, which is close to Avalon. (The Empire attacked Avalon and the Domain from Esperance.)
The Avalonian historian, Rennhi, found the transcription.
Her son, Hloch, included the story in The Earth Book Of Stormgate.

Without Hloch, we would have known of the experience on Avalon and the conversation on Lucifer but not of the correspondence on Earth, the transcription on Esperance or the publication on Avalon. We would have read the account written by Berg's colleague without knowing either that this account was part of a correspondence or anything of the subsequent history of that correspondence.

Thus, the Earth Book not only collects a major part of Poul Anderson's longest future history but also describes the process of historical research unearthing previously buried documents. This combines elements of Heinleinian and Wellsian future histories. We wish that Donar Ayeghen of the Galactic Archaeological Society had written more in this vein on the history of the Terran Empire.