Five Proto-Series

 

A proto-series is a story or novel that is potentially the opening instalment of a series. Thus:

"Time Patrol" would have remained a proto-series if Poul Anderson had written nothing further about the Time Patrol;

"Margin of Profit" would have remained a proto-series if he had written nothing further about Nicholas van Rijn;

"Tiger by the Tail" would have remained a proto-series if he had written nothing further about Dominic Flandry;

and so on.

The six works collected in Flandry's Legacy present at least five proto-series. More could have been written about:

the new team of Dominic Flandry and Miriam Abrams;

Diana Crowfeather and her friends;

Roan Tom's exploits during the Long Night;

the Allied Planets recivilizing isolated interstellar colonies;

Daven Laure, Ranger of the Commonalty.

We would also like to know what became of Merseians, Ythrians, Avalon, Cynthians and Wodenites and whether Aycharaych survived. He would be a changed Chereionite and might have been able to help Fr. Axor to find and interpret Ancient inscriptions.