Before And After

This post treads a very familiar path but maybe clears the route a bit more effectively than previously. Before Poul Anderson's Technic History had been collected in chronological order of fictitious events in Baen Books' seven-volume The Technic Civilization Saga, compiled by Hank Davis, what would have been the best way to present the pre-Flandry period of the Technic History in a coherent reading order?

We already know that the Technic History began with what I call the Polesotechnic League Tetralogy (Trader To The Stars, The Trouble Twisters, Satan's World and Mirkheim) and that its pre-Flandry period culminated in the two Ythrian volumes (The People Of The Wind and The Earth Book Of Stormgate). All that was required, therefore, was a single intermediate volume to be entitled Before And After, collecting one pre-League story, "The Saturn Game," and two post-League stories, "The Star Plunderer" and "Sargasso of Lost Starships." Referring, as they do, to the early Terran Empire, the two post-League stories make perfect prequels to The People Of The Wind.

I had previously thought of The Saturn Game And Other Stories as an additional volume to follow the Earth Book, merely collecting the three remaining stories. However, given the content of these stories, it makes more sense for such a volume to be read between Mirkheim and The People Of The Wind, thus presenting the three stories in a more appropriate reading order in relation to the rest of the series.

Although it is good that The Technic Civilization Saga preserves all of the Earth Book introductions, I still like the idea of the Earth Book both as a discrete volume and as the culmination of the pre-Flandry period of the Technic History.