A spacehand is a nomad from Altai in "Hiding Place." (1961)
Emil Dalmady is from Altai in "Esau." (1970)
This shows us how the idea developed. The planet, Altai, was created as the setting for a Dominic Flandry story, then was reused as the home planet of two different characters in the earlier period of Nicholas van Rijn.
Anderson referred to the planet in only two periods of the writing of the Technic History: 1959/'61 and 1970.
According to Sandra Miesel's Chronology of Technic Civilization, five installments of the History occur in the same decade:
"A Sun Invisible" is an adventure of David Falkayn;
"The Season of Forgiveness" describes an event on the planet, Ivanhoe;
The Man Who Counts, "Esau" and "Hiding Place," in this order, happen to van Rijn.
The stories are said to overlap although the three involving van Rijn must be consecutive and I do not think that there is any internal evidence to suggest one particular order. If anything, "Esau," where van Rijn remains on Earth, should come after the other two where he goes into space.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
"A Message in Secret" is one of my favorite Flandry stories. Think of the carefully worked out background involving the sun Krasna, which in turn affected Altain became what we see of it in the story. I'm also think of the Ice People and how RATS were rapidly evolving on Altai. Many other things can be said, such as "Message" is also the funniest of the Flandry stories.
Sean
Did "A M I S" have a section where (besides big rats) there were some VERY tall (230 cm), rather ghoulish-seeming people not to be messed with? ("Wild Volsky" or something like that?)
-kh
Don't think so.
Kaor, Keith!
No, "A Message in Secret" had nothing like that. Humans and the native Ice People were the only intelligent races living there. And I think the nomads of Altai herded giant, genetically modified rabbits.
Sean
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