Falkayn On Merseia And Van Rijn At Mirkheim

When reading Poul Anderson's original Polesotechnic League Tetralogy, we pass directly from Volume II, The Trouble Twisters, Part III, "The Trouble Twisters," about the trader team's first mission, which is to the planet Ikrananka, to Volume III, Satan's World, in which the team is well established and it is mentioned that David Falkayn has been involved in an "episode" on the planet Merseia. Further, at a later point in Satan's World, Falkayn and Chee Lan converse in the Eriau that they had learned on Merseia in order not to be understood by a third party. We gather that Merseia is one of the many planets that the team has visited after Ikrananka. In The Earth Book of Stormgate, Hloch introduces "Day of Burning" as disclosing the part that Falkayn had played in events on Merseia. Thus, reading the Earth Book after Satan's World, we understand that we are now being told about something that had happened earlier but that Falkayn had been reticent about. Similarly, PL Tetralogy Volume IV is Mirkheim about the planet Mirkheim whereas "Lodestar" in the Earth Book is about Nicholas van Rijn's earlier visit to that planet.

Finally, in The Technic Civilization Saga, we read these and all other Technic History instalments in chronological order of fictional events. Thus, "Day of Burning" directly follows "The Trouble Twisters," while "A Little Knowledge" and "Lodestar" come between Satan's World and Mirkheim. Van Rijn continues to solve problems on Earth while his trader team is in space so that a van Rijn story, "The Master Key," originally collected in Tetralogy Volume I, Trader To The Stars, is to be read between "Day of Burning" and Satan's World. The Technic History has reached completion.