Hloch's Passages

In Poul Anderson's The Earth Book Of Stormgate, Hloch's opening, closing and eleven interstitial passages are printed with neither numbers nor headings. The opening passage introduces the entire book, not specifically the first story, "Wings of Victory." The closing passage is an afterword to the entire volume, not specifically to the twelfth and last story, "Rescue on Avalon."

Although the two-page passage between "Wings of Victory" and "The Problem of Pain" does briefly introduce the second story, most of its text summarizes the intervening history:

the planetologist, Maeve Downey, published her autobiography, Far Adeventure, from which Hloch has extracted "Wings of Victory";

other members of the Olga expedition submitted scientific reports;

the Discovery gale-seized many Ythrians;

Terrans returned to Ythri for study, then trade;

Ythrians adopted modern technology;

to prevent international conflicts from destroying their planet, Terrans eventually established the Solar Commonwealth;

(the off-stage establishment of the Solar Commonwealth in the Technic History corresponds to the on-stage establishment of the UN world government, then the Solar Union, in the Psychotechnic History);

the Commonwealth was temporarily benign;

human beings explored their part of the galaxy and colonized habitable but uninhabited extra-solar planets;

Ythrians began interstellar travel, at first usually with Terrans;

the Olga had discovered Avalon which, too distant to be colonized in the early period, was eventually explored by Ythrians and human beings;

that exploration generated the second story in the Earth Book.

Today, the first working day of 2021, has been busy even for two retirees living under pandemic restrictions. Tomorrow, the blog should consider how Hloch's passages are presented in The Technic Civilization Saga and whether "The Problem of Pain" could be validly adapted as a Star Trek episode. (In fact, I am thinking more about that now.)