Introducing Merseia

Satan's World.

(i) Again, imagine that we are reading not Baen Books' seven-volume The Technic Civilization Saga, compiled by Hank Davis, but the original book version of Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, beginning with what I call the Polesotechnic League Tetralogy, which is followed by the two Avalonian volumes.

In this order:

in Volume II of the Tetralogy, The Trouble Twisters, David Falkayn has adventures on the planet Ivanhoe, in the Beta Centaurian System and on the planet Ikrananka;

in Volume III, Satan's World, his name is associated with "'...episodes involving Beta Centauri, Ikananka, and Merseia.'" (III, p. 349);

in Volume IV, Mirkheim, we see a Merseian and learn something about the episode involving Merseia;

in the second Avalonian volume, The Earth Book Of Stormgate, we read "Day of Burning," about Falkayn's experience on Merseia.

"Day of Burning" had not been in The Trouble Twisters (1966) because it was published in 1967, one year before Satan's World, and thus got a mention in that novel. In the original order of reading, Satan's World, III, presents the first, as yet unexplained, reference to the planet Merseia which will play a major role later in the Technic History.