Rattlewing

"A book such as this would be rattlewing indeed did it not tell anything about Falkayn himself."

-Poul Anderson, INTRODUCTION IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 209-210 AT p. 209.

 

But we have just read a story about Falkayn and two in the previous volume! But we have to remember that those three stories had been collected as The Trouble Twisters whereas Hloch, the fictional author of this introduction, is introducing only the works that were originally collected as The Earth Book Of Stormgate. Hloch's previous installment had been "Esau," about Emil Dalmady and Nicholas van Rijn, back in The Van Rijn Method. Now, Hloch introduces "Day of Burning," about Falkayn on Merseia, and "Lodestar," about Falkayn and others at Mirkheim, except that, in this edition, these two Earth Book installments are separated by three other works. By a long and laborious process, the Technic History has achieved completion. And Hloch's last two installments, about the colonization of Avalon, appear in the third Technic Civilization Saga volume, Rise Of The Terran Empire.