"The Trouble Twisters" is the second work collected in
The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume II,
David Falkayn:
Star Trader. In Volume I,
The Van Rijn Method, we encountered Nicholas van Rijn four times, David Falkayn twice and Adzel once and read two references to the planet Cynthia. Van Rijn was also in the first story in Volume II, "Territory." Now, in "The Trouble Twisters," we see Falkayn, Adzel, the Cynthian Chee Lan and van Rijn (cameo) together in a single work, the first of four such. Van Rijn and the trader team (Falkayn etc) go their separate ways in "Day of Burning" and "The Master Key," respectively, before coming together again in
Satan's World, "Lodestar" and
Mirkheim, the latter being the first work to be collected in Volume III,
Rise Of The Terran Empire - my point as always being the incredible detail work that Poul Anderson invested in building this future history series, seven omnibus volumes in total, on a sound foundation.
We might look at "The Trouble Twisters" again for its information on religion in the Technic History.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And I wonder what happened to that overflowing loose leaf binder in which Anderson, after gritting his teeth, settled down to compiling the detailed notes, charts, essays, etc., underlying the Technic series? Such painstakingly detailed spade work became necessary after he "impulsively" linked the Dominic Flandry stories to those about Old Nick in THE PLAGUE OF
MASTERS, where we see mention of "Polesotechnarch van Rijn."
Even so, I would liked to have seen much more! Something like Tolkien's Appendices to THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Esp. the "historical" Appendix A.
Ad astra! Sean
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