Continuing The Summary

Every time I summarize part of Poul Anderson's Technic History, I want to continue the summary. What is especially enjoyable about this particular future history series is:

first, that it covers many future historical periods;

secondly, that each period clearly follows from the immediately preceding one;

thirdly, however, that the earlier and later periods are so far apart that they seem to be unrelated.

Three Fictional Biographies summarizes The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume I. In the first two volumes, stories overlap as adventures occur simultaneously on different planets. Then the separately introduced characters come together. To summarize events after Volume I:

van Rijn on t'Kela;
he founds the trader team led by Falkayn;
the trader team on Merseia;
van Rijn back home on the Winged Cross in Chicago Integrate;
van Rijn and the trader team together against an external threat to the Commonwealth and League;
the deterioration of the League;
van Rijn finds Mirkheim which Falkayn had discovered;
van Rijn reconvenes the trader team in the advent of the war for Mirkheim which turns out to be a civil war in the League;
Falkayn leads the colonization of the Avalonian islands;
human beings and Ythrians divide the main Avalonian continent;
with Commonwealth and League gone, Argos founds the Empire;
the early Empire;
the Empire makes war on Avalon;
Flandry defends the Empire against Merseians before and after its loss of legitimacy;
Flandry's daughter defends the Empire;
the Empire falls;
there are several later civilizations -

- and, as I said, the end point is very far removed from the start point.