Monday, 27 January 2020

Packaging Poul Anderson's Technic History

(I am unable to attach a cover image of Flandry's Legacy. Have I used up my entitlement to free internet images? No, it has come on.)

I think of:

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows
A Stone In Heaven
The Game Of Empire

- as three "Children of Empire" novels and of:

"A Tragedy of Errors"
The Night Face
"The Sharing of Flesh"
"Starfog"

- as the four post-Imperial installments of the Technic History. Thus, these two sequences could provide the contents of the two concluding omnibus volumes of the Technic History.

However, in Baen Books' seven-volume The Technic Civilization Saga:

Volume VII comprises all the above works except A Knight...;
Flandry is a Captain throughout Volumes V and VI;
Vol VI concludes with A Knight...;
"Bodin's Prayer" is a highly appropriate concluding passage for Vol VI.

In A Stone... and The Game..., Flandry is an Admiral at last, still in Intelligence with a staff loyal to him and choosing his own assignments. He also finally marries and The Game... is potentially the beginning of a new series about his daughter in Intelligence.

Thus, maybe Baen Books' packaging makes sense.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I totally understand why Anderson turned to very different ideas and themes after THE GAME OF EMPIRE--see THE KING OF YS, ORION SHALL RISE, and THE BOAT OF A MILLION YEARS, just for starters! Still, I can't help but regret how we did not get one or two more stories featuring Diana Crowfeather/Flandry and her friends Targovi and Fr. Axor.

Ad astra! Sean