Sunday 26 September 2021

Concluding The Van Rijn Method

Noah Arkwright, introducing the second David Falkayn story, "A Sun Invisible," discusses the galaxy but not its history. As in Poul Anderson's After Doomsday, there are many intelligent species, many of them similar enough to mankind for communication and interaction.

After "A Sun Invisible," The Van Rijn Method collects three more works from the Earth Book, with introductions by Hloch, and the first of the three van Rijn stories that had previously been collected as Trader To The Stars.

One of the people involved in the events of "The Season of Forgiveness" told the story to Emil Dalmady who relayed it to his daughter who fictionalized it for Morgana. Thus, we read her fiction, not a historically more accurate account.

The Man Who Counts is a historical novel although Hloch believes that it is:

"...reasonably factual..."
-Poul Anderson, The Man Who Counts IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 337-515 AT INTRODUCTION, p. 337.

"Esau" is the story of Emil Dalmady as told by his daughter. The reading order has changed. Thus, the Introduction to "The Season of Forgiveness" referred to the Dalmadys as if we already knew of them.

"Hiding Place" is introduced by "Le Matelot" who evokes the expansive period of the Polesotechnic League.

The Technic Civilization Saga, Volumes I-III, beautifully integrate Trader To The Stars, The Trouble Twisters and The Earth Book Of Stormgate.

3 comments:

S.M. Stirling said...

As I said, I think that a historical novel based on van Rijn's life would have to be one comparable to one about, say, Jobs or Musk in our time. That is, it couldn't just invent the framework of events on Diomedes.

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

That framework of events is important for what happens in MIRKHEIM.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

IF Elon Musk succeeds in founding his colony on Mars, that makes it even more likely he will become the subject of historical novels!

Now I'm wondering if any real writers have written novels featuring Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, John Rockefeller, and J. Pierpont Morgan, giants who had transformed the US.

Ad astra! Sean