Thursday, 6 February 2020

More And More

Remember that there are two reading orders for Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization:

first, the individual stories, collections and novels as originally published with The Earth Book Of Stormgate completing the Polesotechnic League period;

secondly, Baen Books' seven-volume The Technic Civilization Saga, compiled by Hank Davis, collecting the entire series in chronological order of fictitious events for the first time ever.

I have found this parallel between the two reading orders:

in the original order, we are both surprised and pleased to find the by now familiar Polesotechnic League, Nicholas van Rijn, David Falkayn and trader team, but also some earlier and later future history, in the Earth Book:

in the Saga, we are both surprised and pleased to find the by now familiar Terran Empire and Dominic Flandry, but also some later future history, in Volume VII, Flandry's Legacy.

Flandry, no longer a Captain but now an Admiral, begins to withdraw from field activity as his daughter becomes active, then history moves on...

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I agree, by the time of THE GAME OF EMPIRE, Flandry was getting too old and high ranking to plausibly continue doing field work. I do realize Anderson wanted to turn to other ideas and themes (and I'm glad he did(, but I regret he did not write one or two more stories featuring Flandry's daughter Diana. And did he and Miriam Flandry have any children of their own?

Ad astra! Sean