The Polesotechnic League In Its Glory

"Here is a story of no large import, save that it gives a picture from within of Terran society when the Polesotechnic League was in its glory..."

-Poul Anderson, INTRODUCTION HOW TO BE ETHNIC IN ONE EASY LESSON IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 175-176 AT p. 176.

 

"The following tale is here because it shows a little more of the philosophy and practice which once animated the Polesotechnic League. Grip well: already these were becoming archaic, if not obsolete."

-Poul Anderson, INTRODUCTION ESAU IN The Van Rijn Method, p. 517 AT p. 517.

 

(The fictional author of both introductions is Hloch of Stormgate Choth on Avalon, writing in The Earth Book Of Stormgate.)

 

Both stories are set during the lifetime of Nicholas van Rijn and there are only a few years or at most a decade between them. Yet the League is said to have gone from glory to archaism. This is one point in the Technic History when more time was needed for events to unfold.