Structure And Coherence

I must be alone in being so fascinated by the mere structure of Poul Anderson's Technic History. Today it came together even more coherently. Hloch states that, in his period, human government on Avalon is sharply limited and a mere habit whereas Erannath strongly implies that, in his later period, such government no longer exists. What he in fact says is that human Avalonians have come to share the Ythrian view that government is irrelevant. An irrelevant institution is going if not gone.

This progression from Hloch's Earth Book to The Day Of Their Return implied, at least to me, that the latter is a sequel not only to the third Young Flandry novel but also to the Ythrian/Avalonian diptych of The People Of The Wind and the Earth Book. Thus, reasoning just from the information summarized in Human Beings On Avalon, it follows that the first ten volumes of the Technic History as originally published comprise a tetralogy followed by a diptych and a trilogy with a common sequel. Since that post also stated that the Young Flandry Trilogy opens an eight-volume Dominic Flandry series, it follows that the Technic History consists of at least fifteen volumes. In fact, just a few more items complete the series:

one post-Flandry collection;

three stories that could be collected between the tetralogy and the diptych (see above);

one story that would fit in the same volume as The Day Of Their Return.

 

The Terran War on Avalon is described in The People Of The Wind and is recently concluded when Hloch compiles the Earth Book. In Erannath's time, that war is so far in the past that the Terran Empire and the Domain of Ythri can now cooperate against a common enemy. And that is exactly how history works.