Hank Davis wrote in his Introduction to Poul Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010) that Anderson had indicated that he:
"...was considering writing no more Polesotechnic League stories after 'Lodestar'..." (p. XII)
Davis was referring to these words by Anderson:
"...I dedicate to him this ending of a saga on which so long we worked together." (p. 682)
- "him" being John W. Campbell.
However, "Lodestar" is indeed the end of the saga of the trade pioneer crew and also an appropriate culmination of Volume II of The Technic Civilization Saga. The first work to be collected in Vol III is Mirkheim which is neither a continuation nor a culmination but a sequel to the trader team series. At the beginning of Mirkheim, Chapter I:
eighteen years have passed since "Lodestar";
Coya had joined the team;
however, for three years, David and she have been retired, starting a family;
Chee Lan has joined another team;
Adzel has entered a Buddhist monastery in the Andes;
van Rijn reconvenes the team not for its original purpose but in response to a political crisis.
And that is indeed the end of the Polesotechnic League series, appropriately republished in a volume entitled Rise Of The Terran Empire.
2 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
While what you said about "Lodestar" being the end of a saga is true enough, a simpler explanation is possible. I think after Anderson wrote "Lodestar" he came to realize he still had some things to say about the Polesotechnic League and the Commonwealth. That is, to draw out more clearly the reasons whey started showing ominous signs of decline in SATAN'S WORLD and "Lodestar."
In the heyday of the League, in which Nicholas van Rijn and David Falkayn lived in its later stages, it was people for people like them to be concerned with problems no more serious, in a cosmic sense, than opening up new markets and finding ways of making mutually profitable deals with alien races. The beginning of the decline of the League and Commonwealth brought to the fore grimmer and harsher problems.
Sean
More irritating typos by me! First paragraph, last sentence, I omitted writing after "reasons" something like "why they."
Sean
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