(i) The Technic History is many time longer than either of its direct predecessors, Heinlein's Future History or Anderson's Psychotechnic History.
(ii) This second Andersonian future history comprises not one but four distinct, and equally substantial, series.
(iii) Series I is the major sf series about Nicholas van Rijn, David Falkayn and the Polesotechnic League.
(iii) Series III is the equally major, and even longer, sf series about Dominic Flandry and the Terran Empire.
(iv) Series II and IV each comprises a future history in its own right.
(v) Series I is continued as a major narrative-within-the-narrative of Series II.
(vi) In the original order of publication, we read six stories and two novels about the Polesotechnic League in four volumes, then found another seven stories and one novel about the PL embedded in the second Avalonian volume.
No other future history has such a structure. We read about the League, then about Ythrians, then an Ythrian's history of the League, then about two further phases of the Technic History. Or, more accurately, Series IV covers three periods of post-Technic history.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Amd the young Poul Anderson was also reading Isaac Asimov's FOUNDATION series, including the pre-Foundation PEBBLE IN THE SKY, THE STARS LIKE DUST, and THE CURRENTS OF SPACE. All of which, along with the ROBOT stories, must have also been an inspiration to Anderson. And PA surpassed Asimov's work in both quality and quantity.
One of the oddities of Anderson's four post-Imperial is that we don't see any non-humans in them. Which I have thought very odd, considering how often we see non-humans in the Polesotechnic and Terran Empire stories.
Sean
Sean,
They are mentioned.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Non human aliens are mentioned a couple of times in Anderson's post-Imperial stories, but not seen or taking active roles in these stories.
Sean
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