When do internal problems of the Polesotechnic League become evident?
The Sixteen Technic History Installments About The Polesotechnic League
In The Van Rijn Method
"Margin of Profit"
"How To Ethnic In One Easy Lesson"
"The Three-Cornered Wheel"
"A Sun Invisible"
"The Season of Forgiveness"
The Man Who Counts
"Esau"
"Hiding Place"
In David Falkayn: Star Trader
"Territory"
"The Trouble Twisters"
"Day of Burning"
"The Master Key"
Satan's World
"A Little Knowledge"
"Lodestar"
In Rise Of The Terran Empire
Mirkheim
"Margin of Profit" tells us of the League:
"...it had its troubles."
-Poul Anderson, "Margin of Profit" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, 2009), pp. 135-173.
But does it show us any of the internal troubles?
"How To Be Ethnic..." makes it clear that there is much dissatisfaction among many young Earthlings who do not get spacemen's berths.
Hloch's Earth Book introduction to "Esau" states that League philosophy and practice were becoming archaic, even obsolete, but the story does not show this.
Poul Anderson stated in the SFWA Bulletin (Fall, 1979) that Satan's World shows a society in a bad state but does it show more than an external threat to Technic Civilization?
"A Little Knowledge," "Lodestar" and Mirkheim are a concentrated dose of internal problems.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
As for "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson," I would point out those young Earthlings also needed to QUALIFY for those spacer berths. No one should want ignorant, uneducated dunderheads trying to run space ships or deal intelligently with non humans.
And that external threat in SATAN'S WORLD could be considered a hint of future troubles to come in Technic civilization.
Ad astra! Sean
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