The Future Has A Future

The information that, on Avalon, many human beings join the Ythrian social organizations called "choths" is disclosed in only one installment of Poul Anderson's Technic History, The People of The Wind. However, this information is repeated in the two-page introduction to the omnibus collection, The Earth Book Of Stormgate. After its introduction, the Earth Book begins with "Wings of Victory" which wound up becoming the second installment of the Technic History in terms of the chronological order of fictitious events because one later-written story, "The Saturn Game," was set earlier.

Baen Books' seven-volume The Technic Civilization Saga, compiled by Hank Davis:

collects the entire Technic History in fictional chronological order;

also reproduces all the story introductions that were added in the Earth Book;

therefore opens with "The Saturn Game" followed by the introduction referring to human membership of choths on Avalon followed by "Wings of Victory," despite the fact that The People Of The Wind is not collected until the end of Volume III of the Saga.

Thus, almost at the beginning of this collected future history series, the reader receives an anachronistic glimpse of a considerably later period of the history. The Solar Commonwealth and the Polesotechnic League have risen and fallen and have been replaced by the Terran Empire before we begin to read the account of the Empire's war against the Domain of Ythri in The People Of The Wind.

Both reading orders of the Technic History are good.