Monday 3 January 2022

Technic History Completion

I have said before more than once and please skip this post if it is becoming tedious that, in order to preserve the original reading order of the first part of Poul Anderson's Technic History, it would be necessary to reissue it as seven volumes, thus:

I-IV, the Polesotechnic League Tetralogy, comprising Trader To The Stars, The Trouble Twisters, Satan's World and Mirkheim;

V, The Saturn Game And Other Stories, collecting "The Saturn Game," "The Star Plunderer" and "Sargasso of Lost Starships";

VI, The People Of The Wind, the Ythrian novel;

VII, The Earth Book Of Stormgate.

This does make more sense than you might realize because the Earth Book presents eight more Polesotechnic League installments and four more Ythrian installments whereas the proposed Volume V collects the three remaining early Technic History installments. Thus, it is not only complete but also presented in a rational order.

These seven volumes are followed by the nine-volume Flandry period and its single-volume sequel, thus completing the Technic History.

5 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And editors of a COMPLETE COLLECTED WORKS OF POUL ANDERSON would have to decide how to collect and arrange the Technic stories. At a minimum, I would want them collected in internal chronological order in their own volumes. There would still be some questions and difficulties, such as how to handle the fictional introductions Anderson wrote for the stories in THE EARTH BOOK OF STORMGATE. And would a volume collecting only "Outpost of Empire" and THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN be long enough to justify a volume containing only two stories?

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

It depends whether the publisher is going for omnibus volumes or ordinary length ones.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I would prefer omnibus volumes, where they are practical. The three Young Flandry novels would be most conveniently collected in an omnibus volume.

The four volumes of THE KING OF YS, in a COMPLETE COLLECTED WORKS, should be collected in a two per volume format.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

On the internet, I have seen the cover of a single-volume YS.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

As have I. I never got a copy of that edition because I thought it would be inconveniently big and heavy, to have all four LARGE volumes of THE KING OF YS bound together in one book.

Ad astra! Sean