Contrast the opening four stories of Anderson's Psychotechnic History:
"Marius"
"Un-Man"
"The Sensitive Man"
"The Big Rain"
- with the opening four or five stories of his Technic History:
"Wings of Victory"
"The Problem of Pain"
"How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson"/"Margin of Profit" (stories overlap)
In the Psychotechnic stories, the protagonists are struggling to shape the course of future history whereas, in the Technic stories, the characters are simply living and working in successive periods of their history. In the fifth Psychotechnic story, "Quixote and the Windmill," the main character loudly complains about the period he is living in! So the emphasis remains on consciousness of history rather than just living in it. (In this character's case, not working in it, which is what he complains about.)
We are grateful to Anderson for enabling us to contrast an earlier, shorter future history series with a later, longer such series. As we read both of these series, we see the author's skills grow and the concept develop. Start with Robert Heinlein's Future History, to be followed by these two Anderson series.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
I only wish BETTER COVERS could have been found for the Baen Books volumes collecting the stories set in Dominic Flandry's lifetime! Just seeing those awful covers makes me think an enemy of Anderson chose them with malice aforethought!
And I don't mean "awful" in the positive sense meant by Charles II !
Ad astra! Sean
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