A novel or short story tells us what happened, fictitiously speaking. Question: Did Moriarty die at Reichenbach? Two answers: No, because that is fiction; Yes, if the question means: "Is that what happened in Conan Doyle's 'The Final Problem'?"
A prequel tells us what happened before and a sequel tells us what happened after - obviously. However, there is a kind of sequel that does both. It says, "There are things that we did not tell you before." This is "retcon," retroactive continuity.
Poul Anderson's The Game Of Empire recounts some events that occur later than those described in the series that features Dominic Flandry as its central character. Anderson describes this novel as:
"...a sort of coda to the biography of Dominic Flandry, Intelligence agent for the Terran Empire."
-INTRODUCTION, p. 191.
However, the novel also recounts:
the origin of the Zacharians a millennium earlier on Terra;
Erik Magnusson's disaffection from the Terran Empire during the reigns of Georgios and Josip;
Erik's meeting with Brechdan Ironrede, no less, and his son, Olaf's, conditioning by Aycharaych, no less.
Thus, Poul Anderson becomes a master of retcon.
In fact, searching the blog for Erik Magnusson (scroll down) discloses more relevant earlier posts.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Some readers might wonder why we see no mention of the Zacharians in the earlier stories, in both the eras of the Polesotechnic League and the Empire. There were two reasons for that, one actual and one plausible in Technic History terms. The actual reason being that Anderson never thought of the Zacharians before he started writing THE GAME OF EMPIRE. And the plausible reason is that the sheer vastness, in time and space, of an interstellar civilization made it easy for small ethnic groups like the Zacharians to be overlooked by most people most of the time.
Ad astra! Sean
Strictly speaking, it's not really a retcon if it isn't necessary to "explain away" anything. Eg., the Zacharians are too obscure to need mentioning earlier, and there are just so many planets in the Empire that Dakotia needn't be mentioned.
Likewise, in all the Flandry stories it's emphasized that he's been on many more planets than we see, and many of them aren't named.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
You made good points I agree with. Esp. the one about the Zazharians being too obscure to NEED being mentioned earlier. And given the 100,000 worlds in regular contact with each other and the Imperium, even Flandry could only have visited a fairly small number of those planets.
Ad astra! Sean
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