Unpacking The Polesotechnic League Series

The Polesotechnic League series developed gradually and acquired substance before almost imperceptibly becoming part of a future history series outlasting the lives of individual characters. We appreciate the structure of the companion volumes, Trader To The Stars and The Trouble Twisters, because, whereas the first volume introduces Nicholas van Rijn, the second chronicles the early career of David Falkayn and shows two stages of Falkayn's approach to closer involvement with van Rijn. However, the six stories in these two collections do not present a chronologically linear sequence. In the first two Falkayn stories, the central character is still so young that these stories have to be set earlier than any of the three collected van Rijn stories. The third Falkayn story, "The Trouble Twisters," in which van Rijn appoints Falkayn to lead the first trade pioneer crew, is set immediately after the second collected van Rijn story, "Territory." A second story about the trade pioneer crew, "Day of Burning," is not included in The Trouble Twisters but is set before the third collected van Rijn story, "The Master Key."

And there are other complications. Another member of the trade pioneer crew, Adzel, first appears, in terms of fictional chronology, in "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson" which falls between the original van Rijn story, "Margin of Profit," and the first Falkayn story, "The Three-Cornered Wheel." And three other works, two of them featuring van Rijn, fall between the second Falkayn story, "A Sun Invisible," and the first Trader To To The Stars story, "Hiding Place." So it did make sense for Baen Books to republish the entire Technic History in chronological order of fictional events as The Technic Civilization Saga, compiled by Hank Davis.

The twelve works mentioned in this post do not themselves add up to a future history series but do make a significant contribution to it.