"'The world's great age begins anew...'"
-Poul Anderson, "Hiding Place" IN Anderson, The Van Rijn Method (Riverdale, NY, December 2009), pp. 555-609 AT INTRODUCTION, p. 555.
Hloch's Introduction to "Esau" informs us that, at this time, Polesotechnic League philosophy and practice were becoming archaic or even obsolete.
Yet "Esau" precedes "Hiding Place" in The Van Rijn Method and, according to Sandra Miesel's CHRONOLOGY OF TECHNIC CIVILIZATION, the two stories are set in a decade when "stories overlap" (p. 613) It follows that Le Matelot's Introduction belongs much earlier, before the first two Polesotechnic League stories, "Margin of Profit" and "How to Be Ethnic in One Easy Lesson," which also overlap.
When the stories from the earlier collections, Trader To The Stars and The Earth Book Of Stormgate, are brought together in The Technic Civilization Saga, then we gain a transhistorical perspective, becoming aware of the beginning and the end of the Polesotechnic League simultaneously.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I think we should expect some overlapping as well in the obsolescence or non-obsolescence of theory and practice within the League. Some, like Old Nick, would continue to honor the old philosophy and ethos of he League, while others would not.
Ad astra! Sean
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