There are two kinds of fictional series because a mono-generational sequence features a central character with a supporting cast and/or a group of characters, like an Intelligence team or a spaceship crew, but they remain a single generation whereas a multi-generational saga, like a future history series, links together individuals, possibly although not necessarily including some mono-generational series characters, who live in different periods. Star Trek graduated from mono- to multi-. In a very long range future history, the individuals get lost in the history although, in Anderson's Genesis, human personalities that have been incorporated into the collective post-organic intelligence can be re-individuated and re-embodied billions of years later.
Heinlein's Future History and Anderson's Psychotechnic History have some prominent characters although few appear more than once and none appear more than twice:
in the Future History, Harriman, Libby and the Vanguard crew;
in the Psychotechnic History, Fourre and Trevelyan Micah.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
You're right! We never see Fourre and Trevelyan more than twice in the Pyschotechnic series. I would put that down to Anderson still learning how to repeatedly show the same characters more than once in the Psychotechnic stories. It was with Nicholas van Rijn Dominic Flandry and Manse Everard that we truly see him using characters more than twice.
Well, there's also the Wing Alak stories, to be picky.
Sean
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