Isaac Asimov's original Foundation series was collected in one volume as The Foundation Trilogy;
Poul Anderson's previously uncollected Ythrian stories and Polesotechnic League stories were collected in one volume, although also with a three-volume paperback edition, as The Earth Book Of Stormgate.
How much richer and more diverse is the Earth Book:
a story about first contact with Ythri;
a story about Christianity and the Ythrian New Faith and also about Ythrians and human beings - the latter group including a newly married couple from the planet Aeneas - as they explore the planet Avalon that would later be colonized by members of both species led by David Falkayn;
a story about the Wodenite Adzel as a student on Earth;
the first Nicholas van Rijn short story;
the story of Emil Dalmady framed by his dialogue with van Rijn;
a story set on the planet Ivanhoe which had previously been visited by League apprentice, David Falkayn;
the first van Rijn novel, also introducing the Grand Duchess of Hermes, David Falkayn's home planet;
a story about problems in the Polesotechnic League;
a story about van Rijn's trader team of David Falkayn, Adzel and the Cynthian Chee Lan on the planet, Merseia;
a pivotal story featuring van Rijn and the trader team and Ythrians and the wealth-generating planet, Mirkheim, which had been discovered by David Falkayn;
a story about David Falkayn's grandson and his young Ythrian companions living on the Hesperian islands on Avalon;
a story, featuring an ancestor of Christopher Holm, about human-Ythrian interaction during the colonization of the Coronan continent on Avalon;
new introductions written by the Ythrian Hloch of Stormgate Choth on Avalon, presenting information about the authors of the stories who include Hloch himself, Christopher Holm and Emil Dalmady's daughter.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
It's a pity, tho, that Anderson did not think of writing a Young Nick story, showing us Nicholas van Rijn as a youth, as he was beginning his rise to fame/infamy, glory, and stupendous wealth. Such a story has to be the single most important lacuna in the Technic series. And you can probably think of other gaps you would like to see filled in.
After so much hard SF this year, felt the need for a change of pace, so I'm rereading Tolkien's THE SILMARILLION.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I would like the Technic History to go on forever.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Ha! I've sometimes felt that way myself! But I would settle for two more Technic stories: a Young Nick story, and an Old Sir Dominic story, set in his old age.
Ad astra! Sean
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