Volumes And Collections

I am glad to have a copy of that milestone volume, Poul Anderson's The Earth Book of Stormgate, even though its entire contents are faithfully reproduced in Baen Books' later The Technic Civilization Saga. Right now I am looking at two volumes of Anderson's History of Technic Civilization. Neither is or could have been the entire History. However, The Van Rijn Method is Volume I of the seven volume complete edition, the Saga, whereas the Earth Book was an omnibus collection of previously uncollected works with new fictional introductions.

The Van Rijn Method collects eleven works, including the first van Rijn novel, The Man Who Counts. The Earth Book collects twelve works, including that same novel. So are they almost the same volume? No, but they are closely related. The Van Rijn Method comprises:

one previously uncollected work;
six of the twelve works from the Earth Book;
two of the three works from the David Falkayn collection, The Trouble Twisters;
two of the three works from the Nicholas van Rijn collection, Trader To The Stars.

The rest of the Earth Book and of van Rijn's and Falkayns careers, together with other relevant material, are in Volumes II and III and then there are four more volumes of the History! This is the ultimate future history series, building on the model created by Robert Heinlein but going far beyond Heinlein's Future History in both scale and depth.