Oaks And Acorns

British editions of James Blish's collection, Galactic Cluster, excluded "This Earth of Hours," which meant that, for a while, I had not yet read that story. I first read "This Earth of Hours," as well as Poul Anderson's "The Game of Glory" and "The Sky People," as reprints in the British edition of Venture Science Fiction.

"This Earth of Hours" refers to two other stories in Galactic Cluster and thus locates itself within Blish's non-linear "Haertel Scholium." However, neither "The Game of Glory" nor "The Sky People" gives any indication that it is part of something bigger. Not only is "The Sky People" the first of the three Maurai stories but also these three stories are discussed as works of fiction in Anderson's There Will Be Time!

We appreciate ingenious inter-textual connections and cross-references. The progression from the "Maurai" part of Maurai And Kith to There Will Be Time to the later Orion Shall Rise is particularly worthy of respect.