An Ultimate Series And Collection

Poul Anderson's Technic History synthesises the Holmesian character-based series model with the Heinleinian future history series model. We have come a long way from "The Murder in the Rue Morgue" (1841) to "Starfog" (1967) (the chronologically last Technic History instalment) and The Game of Empire (1985) (the last published Technic History instalment) but these works are tenuously linked: the first Dupin story, the last Technic History story and the last Flandry story - really the first instalment about Flandry's daughter but unfortunately there were to be no more. 

Within the Technic History, The Earth Book of Stormgate, as originally published in a single volume, is an ultimate collection. Having already read eight Polesotechnic League instalments culminating with the beginning of the end of the League, we now read eight more League instalments which in turn are incorporated into the Ythrian narrative that had been introduced in The People of the Wind. For once, the front cover blurb of a collection is factually accurate:

"THE SPLENDOR, WONDER & TERROR OF THE STARFLUNG  POUL ANDERSON TAKES YOU THERE!" -Philip Jose Farmer

"Spans, illuminates and completes the magnificent future history of the Polesotechnic League"