South Pacific Sunset.
Sometimes we do something for the last time knowing that it is the last time. On this occasion:
Poul Anderson knew that he was writing the last Polesotechnic League narrative;
we know that we are reading the last PL narrative;
Adzel knows that the team is about to embark on its last adventure.
That is a lot of knowledge of endings. We have known Adzel since the trader team's first expedition and, before that, since his student days on Earth.
I recently referred to Coronation Street. When two women who had run the corner shop for a long time were about to retire and go their separate ways, one asked, "How many years has it been?" The question was ironic or metafictional since that TV series is a real time drama. Thus, it had been exactly as many years for the actors as for the characters. We do not share the same time frame as Adzel. Anderson had had to skip over decades of missions in order to give us a beginning, a middle and an end for the story of van Rijn's first trade pioneer crew. This sub-series of the Technic History ends here with a sense of completion and closure.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Unfortunately, this ending of Anderson's Polesotechnic League sub series was succeeded by a decline of both the League and Solar Commonwealth, leading to the anarchy and chaos of the Time of Troubles. But that would not really start till about a century after MIRKHEIM. So the first half century or so after that story might not be too bad for most people in the Technic timeline.
Sean
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