The image shows the first three of the seven volumes of Baen books' The Technic Civilization Saga, compiled by Hank Davis. However, this post focuses on the first three of the forty three installments of Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization.
Reading the Technic History in its original order, which I still like, the first three stories to be read are not the first three installments of the history but the fourth, fifth and sixth stories about Nicholas van Rijn.
The first three stories in the history have no common characters or settings and all happen before the birth of van Rijn. They are:
"The Saturn Game," set about 2055 - the Solar System is being explored and the Jerusalem Catholic Church has been founded;
"Wings of Victory," set 2150 (?) - interstellar exploration (the "Grand Survey"), first contact with Ythri, Hermes has been colonized, Woden and Cynthia have been discovered and explored;
"The Problem of Pain," 24th century (?) - exploration of Avalon by Ythrians employing Aenean human beings.
Important later:
the Jerusalem Catholic Church
Ythrians
Hermes
Wodenites
Cynthians
Aeneas
Avalon
A very firm foundation.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Sometimes I wonder why I was so enthralled by Asimov's three original FOUNDATION books as a boy. I eventually came to feel very dissatisfied by them, for reasons I've discussed elsewhere in this blog.
And I recall you speculated that the "Jerusalem Catholic Church" is simply our real world Catholic Church, with the Papacy moving to Jerusalem or near it. If so, it's plain something drastic HAPPENED to Rome before AD 2055 in the Technic timeline to force this transfer. The pessimist in me wonders if Rome was destroyed by a nuclear bomb and the site became uninhabitable.
Which reminds me of how Rome was destroyed in Robert Hugh Benson's novel LORD OF THE WORLD.
Ad astra! Sean
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