(ii) Adzel's and Chee Lan's concluding conversation sums up everything but I have discussed it before. See here.
Anderson describes a Hermetian stream shining and swirling among boulders and gnarly trees beneath cold moist air and upland summer odors;
Adzel describes wind-swept Wodenite plains, bright and open, with endless horizons and flowers underfoot;
Chee Lan describes Cynthian light on leaves above mysterious shapes, colorful wings and petals and a rill in a glen.
The ends were in the beginning:
"Wings of Victory" not only introduced the winged Ythrians but also mentioned Hermes, Woden and Cynthia;
"The Problem of Pain" introduced not only Avalon and the Ythrian New Faith but also a Christian man from Aeneas, a planet whose millenarianism becomes important later in the History;
"How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" not only introduced Adzel and the Polesotechnic League but also mentioned:
"...treetop highways under the golden-red sun of Cynthia!"
-Poul Anderson, "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 175-197 AT p. 183.
No future history series could possibly be more integrated.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
We see a rare moment of sensitivity, even a bit of sentimentality, here from Chee Lan! If my recollection is right, that was brought on by her being affected by the beauty of Earth.
And no other "future history" has been as fleshed out and REALISTIC feeling as Anderson's Technic Civilization series, I agree. Superior to that of Heinlein's Future History, Asimvov's FOUNDATION series, OR Anderson's Psychotechnic stories. Only Jerry Pournelle's Co-Dominium tales comes closest.
Sean
Sean,
I am hard put to it to regard the Co-Dominium as anywhere close to the Technic History.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Actually, I agree. But I still find the Co-Dominium series better than those of Heinlein and Asimov. And Pournelle later had other writers making contributions to that series, even including one story by Anderson. And think as well of the MAJOR contributions made by S.M. Stirling.
So I'm still fond of THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE, THE GRIPPING HAND, and GO TELL THE SPARTANS and PRINCE OF SPARTA.
Sean
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