Thursday 2 May 2019

Early Extraterrestrial Explorations

Why not a publishing technology that enables a reader to print out books in any preferred format? (I will explain what I mean.)

It is aesthetically satisfying and economically sound to publish a series of books in uniform volumes of approximately equal lengths. Hence, the precise lengths and contents of Volumes I-VII of Baen Books' The Technic Civilization Saga by Poul Anderson. However, I have speculated about an alternative way to present this series. See the "Bite-Size" search result, here.

Here would be another way. In terms of content alone:

the opening three short stories of the Technic History describe the exploration of Iapetus, Ythri and Gray/Avalon;

the next sixteen installments, including three novels, cover the Polesotechnic League period and could be presented in an order that begins and ends with Adzel because his name is the opening word of "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" and he concludes the dialogue at the very end of Mirkheim;

after Mirkheim, the other five installments, including one novel, in the existing Volume III form a coherent sequence -

Avalonian islands are settled;
an Avalonian continent is settled;
Argos says that he will found the Terran Empire;
the Empire incorporates Ansa;
the Empire fails to incorporate Avalon.

Potentially, this gives us three volumes of very different lengths:

Early Extraterrestrial Explorations;
The Polesotechnic League;
Avalon And Empire.

But, however we look at it, we appreciate the length, coherence and complexity of Anderson's Technic History.

7 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And I would love to see a standardized COMPLETE COLLECTED WORKS OF POUL ANDERSON, as was done for the works of Jack Vance and Robert Heinlein. And I recall Anderson writing somewhere of obtaining the complete works of Rudyard Kipling in such a format (called the "Shropshire" edition?).

IF such a project for collecting the complete works of Anderson was ever set up, I would recommend you as one of the editors. And, of course, a special effort would need to be made to track down stories and essays by Anderson which has never yet been recollected/republished. I made a stab at listing some of these at risk of being lost works in my "Uncollected Works of Poul Anderson" article.

Sean

Anonymous said...

I would enjoy reading "Green Thumb," I've never seen it in print. Any info about it appreciated.

-kh

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Keith,
Not a great story but it is in THE (so-called) COMPLETE PSYCHOTECHNIC LEAGUE,
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

If "The Green Thumb" was written before 1959, that places it in Anderson's early phase as a writer, when he was, in many ways, still learning how to write. So I would expect most of Anderson's weaker early stories to belong to his early phase.

Sean

Anonymous said...

Much appreciated, Paul. I have only the first two volumes. Is it in Volume 3?

-kh

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Keith,
Volume 3, after "The Acolytes."
Paul.

Anonymous said...

Thank you,
KH