The Earth Book Introduction

Hloch's Introduction to The Earth Book Of Stormgate is written on the peak of Mount Anrovil in the Weathermother on the planet Avalon and refers to still-current wreckage caused by the recent Terran War so this Introduction is composed in the immediate aftermath of the events of The People Of The Wind although the twelve works collected in the Earth Book are all set earlier than that novel, covering a historical period from before the founding of the Polesotechnic League to shortly before its dissolution but stopping short of the founding of the Terran Empire which had attempted to annex Avalon in The People Of The Wind.

Baen Books' seven-volume The Technic Civilization Saga, compiled by Hank Davis, republishes Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization in chronological order of fictitious events and therefore places the first Earth Book story, "Wings of Victory," near the beginning of Volume I but The People Of The Wind at the end of Volume III. At the same time, however, the Saga preserves Hloch's Introduction to the Earth Book, Introductions to subsequent stories and Afterword. Thus, the Introduction to the Earth Book, now presented just as an Introduction to "Wings of Victory," appears two volumes in advance of the Terran Empire and the Terran War to which it refers.