"Those who remember other tales from the world of the Maurai will perhaps notice what appear to be inconsistencies with them in this book. However, consistency is not an either-or matter. New data and insights often cause us to revise our ideas about the past and even the present. Surely the future is not exempt."
-Poul Anderson, Orion Shall Rise (London, 1988), p. vii.
Consistency is an either-or matter but later installments of a series might embody new data or insights.
The future is even less exempt. There are inconsistencies within a single future history series and multiple alternative future history series. There are also:
many fictional alternative pasts and presents;
many mutually incompatible interpretations and understandings of the single real past and present.
Enoch Powell claimed that the existence of the British Empire was a myth, deception and invention. If the Empire never existed, then it never did any wrong and Britain did not decline by losing an Empire. This is a fiction presented as an understanding.
Sathnam Sanghera, a son of Punjabi immigrants to Britain, learns about the Amritsar massacre. We imagine later generations of Shalmuans and Braeans learning about Terran atrocities on their planets in Poul Anderson's Technic History.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I agree, consistency has to be an either/or matter. Anderson erred here. And one oddity or inconsistency about his Maurai stories which has been discussed here was how metals would become rare and very costly in the Maurai timeline. As Stirling pointed out, metals becoming that costly simply would not likely have been the case, not when the post-War of Judgement world should have found lots of metal from recycling cars, appliances of all kinds, steel framed buildings, even mines, etc. We see Anderson retreating somewhat from that flawed idea in ORION SHALL RISE.
Happy New Year! Sean
A
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