Saturday, 7 December 2019

The Origins Of Stormgate Choth II

Now that is what I call a collection of Technic History covers. They are all pre-Flandry. The Man Who Counts is incorporated into The Earth Book Of Stormgate. Thus, this image presents:

the second of the two collections in the Polesotechnic League Tetralogy;

the culminating novel of the Tetralogy;

the omnibus collection which, according to its front cover blurb, "spans, illuminates and completes" the history of the Polesotechnic League.

"How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" is included in the Earth Book because:

"...it gives a picture from within of Terran society when the Polesotechnic League was in its glory - and, incidentally, makes the first mention known to Hloch of a being who was to take a significant part in later history."
-Poul Anderson, The Earth Book Of Stormgate (New York, 1979), p. 49.

We are delighted to learn that that being is Adzel. Of course this is the first mention known to Hloch. It is a prequel to the trader team series and is based on a passage in the first trader team story. Thus, there is no earlier story about Adzel.

2 comments:

S.M. Stirling said...

I happen to know that Poul usually did things like this spontaneously and from memory.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

Such as the time Chee Lan derisively scoffed that Adzel played the dragon in Chinese New Year celebrations (in, I think, SATAN'S WORLD)?

Ad astra! Sean