From The Angezi Raj To The Terran Empire

I have been rereading the Athelstane King passages of SM Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers (New York, 2003) in search of a particular reference to Krishna. Rereading only selected passages generates continuity problems. Warburton is one of those who accompany King on camel-back into the desert (pp. 339, 351), is not one of those who leap onto a train with King (pp. 379-380) but is with King the next time we see him (p. 387)? But such continuity conundra must result from my not reading the text consecutively...

Before retiring, let me commend the smooth transition in Poul Anderson, Rise of The Terran Empire (New York, 2011) from the League period to the Imperial period and, in particular from the concluding van Rijn novel, Mirkheim, to the opening page of the novel, The People Of The Wind. On that page, Daniel Holm converses with his son Chris on Avalon. Avalon was settled in the two stories that followed Mirkheim and there was an Ivar Holm in the second of those stories. Daniel and Chris discuss an imminent war and, a few pages later, we learn that that war will be against the Terran Empire which was introduced in the third and fourth stories separating Mirkheim from The People Of The Wind.

Those opening pages of the second novel also informs us that, for the past hundred years on Avalon, Ythrian choths have been accepting human beings into membership. Thus, Christopher Holm is also Arinnian of Stormgate Choth and, lacking wings, flies with a gravbelt. We have left Nicholas van Rijn far behind. Arinnian will eventually marry Hrill of Highsky Choth who is Tabitha Falkayn, a direct descendant of van Rijn's protege, the Founder of Avalon. That is quite an involved and dense future history - and we are nowhere near Dominic Flandry yet.