Reread "The Problem of Pain" to get the maximum information on Gray/Avalon before colonization.
Maybe these are the next two items on my rereading agenda.
In fact, "Wings of Victory" also presents more general information about interstellar civilization at the time of the first Grand Survey, even mentioning Cynthia, Woden and Hermes, the home planets of the three organic members of Nicholas van Rijn's first trade pioneer crew, whereas "The Problem of Pain" features a Christian couple from Aeneas, also an important planet in a much later period of the Technic History.
The roots of the history are present in these opening stories long before any of the main continuing characters have been born. If anyone knows of a better future history, then I will be very interested to read it!
But the next item on my agenda today is the weekly lunch with my son-in-law and technical adviser, Ketlan, and probably watching the most recent installment of His Dark Materials.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And the interesting thing about "The Problem of Pain" is how Anderson speculated in that story how two intelligent races could have very different religious philosophical POVs. So much so that a Ythrian character, decent and well meaning, unintentionally caused pain and harm to one of the human characters.
Of the other "future histories" I have read, only Jerry Pournelle's Co-Dominium series came closest to giving me that sense of actually living in the times, locations, and societies he speculated about. The Co-Do timeline also gained a special layer of interest from other author co-authoring additions to the series (first Larry Niven and then S.M. Stirling) or wholly independent stories set in it. Including a short story contributed by Poul Anderson("The Deserter").
I would need to reread Heinlein's "Future History" before I would feel able to comment about it the way I did Pournelle's work. But I do remember THE MAN WHO SOLD THE MOON very favorably.
And we both know of my dissatisfaction with Asimov's FOUNDATION series!
David would advocate for H. Beam Piper's Terro-Human future history, but I read too little in that series to comment about it.
And I do think well, in addition, of Larry Niven's Known Space stories. Even if sometimes I thought them a bit too colorless.
Ad astra! Sean
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