Friday, 6 March 2020

Future And Alternative Historical Links

In Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization, what link or connection, if any, is there between Daven Laure of the Commonalty and Nicholas van Rijn of the Polesotechnic League, apart from the fact that they inhabit different periods of a single history?

There is at least one very tenuous indirect link:

Laure meets the Kirkasanters;

readers know that the Kirkasanters are descendants of rebels expelled from the Terran Empire by Dominic Flandry;

Flandry knew of van Rijn.

Thus, unsurprisingly, the Empire links the League to the Commonalty. But there is an even more tenuous link between Laure and the Prince Rupert of the Rhine of the Shakespearean timeline in Anderson's  A Midsummer Tempest. Both Rupert and van Rijn visit the inter-universal Old Phoenix Inn. This connection takes us right outside the Technic History and, furthermore, is considerably more difficult to accept - in terms of willing suspension of disbelief - while we are reading about Laure's scientific exploration of the Cloud Universe.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Yes, by mentioning how the Empire and the League existed in his past, Daven Laure was thereby connecting the Commonalty to those past eras. Yes, it is a strain to demonstrate how A MIDSUMMER TEMPEST has a very tenuous linking to "House Rule."

Ad astra! Sean