Future histories include fictional biographies. Reading about Nicholas van Rijn as an individual character in "Margin of Profit," "Esau" and "Hiding Place," we have as yet no suspicion that:van Rijn will employ a young man called David Falkayn;
Falkayn will become van Rijn's grandson-in-law;
through Falkayn and Coya, van Rijn will become a great-grandfather;
Falkayn will found a colony;
Falkayn's and Coya's grandson will grow up on the planet, Avalon.
If we add that, generations later, their direct descendant, Tabitha Falkayn, will be brought up by Avalonian Ythrians in the Oronesian archipelago, then we have passed from the realm of overlapping biographies back into the realm of history and yet have reached the end of only the third of the seven volumes of The Technic Civilization Saga.
Two special features of Poul Anderson's Technic History are its vastness in space and time and, within that cosmic spatio-temporal perspective, its strong biographical dimension.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And that overflowing loose leaf binder in which Anderson wrote down and collected so much of the background for the Technic Civilization stories must contain biographical and historical material we would find fascinating! It's a pity Anderson didn't condense some of that material to form the kind of historical Appendix JRR Tolkien created from analogous papers to create Appendix A of THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Esp. the Annals of the Numenorean Kings and Rulers.
Ad astra! Sean
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