I argued that Olaf Stapledon and JRR Tolkien are polar opposites whereas Poul Anderson is bipolar - although I did not phrase it like that. I could have added that he is also tropical and equatorial. His works stretch along a line of longitude between the poles of heroic fantasy and cosmological sf:
heroic fantasy
historical fantasy
historical fiction
historical fiction with elements of fantasy
historical science fiction
one long historical/contemporary/futuristic novel
alternative history fiction
a contemporary fantasy novel
a contemporary detective trilogy
near future sf
future histories
cosmological sf
A novel with gods as characters is fantasy whereas a historical novel in which gods are invoked and magic sometimes works involves "elements of fantasy." Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings Trilogy is one narrative in three volumes. Poul and Karen Anderson's King Of Ys Tetralogy is one narrative in four volumes. These works are comparable. Tolkien describes the end of the Third Age of Middle-earth leading to the Age of Men and eventually to the Anglo-Saxon period and the present day. The Andersons describe the end of the city of Ys, then of the Roman Empire, and the beginning of the Dark Ages which lead, as we know, to the Middle Ages, then to the modern period and hopefully to a future on and off Earth.
On top of all that, alternative histories literally broaden the temporal perspective.
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