completes the story of the Polesotechnic League;
almost completes the story of human-Ythrian interactions;
refers to the Terran Empire although not to Dominic Flandry.
This encapsulates the place of the Earth Book in the Technic History. It indicates what has gone before:
the Polesotechnic League Tetralogy containing eight instalments, including two novels;
a novel about the war between the Domain of Ythri and the Terran Empire;
three other stories, two of them about the founding and the early period of the Terran Empire -
- what happens in the Earth Book itself:
eight more Polesotechnic League instalments, including one novel;
four human-Ythrian short stories;
Ythrian introductions -
- and what comes after:
the nine-volume Flandry period, including the last appearance of an Ythrian;
four post-Imperial instalments.
If we read the Technic History in its original order, then we read the conclusion of the PL series, Mirkheim, as Volume IV but then read a second PL series with its appropriate conclusion, "Lodestar," in the Earth Book. We had read the last farewells of van Rijn etc but now find them alive again in the Earth Book.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
Different writers and historians, real and fictional, can arrange and use the same sources in different ways, as the needs of their work requires.
Ad astra! Sean
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