Saturday 26 August 2023

Polesotechnic League, Volume V, And A Later Collection


This inside dust jacket blurb for Poul Anderson's The Earth Book of Stormgate describes the Earth Book as the fifth volume of Anderson's Polesotechnic League series. A fuller description would be that the Earth Book is the fifth and last Polesotechnic League volume and also the second and last Ythrian volume. The Earth Book is a narrative convergence. The Ythrians have their own series comprising the novel, The People of the Wind, and four stories in the Earth Book. They also appear in one League story, "Lodestar," collected in the Earth Book, and finally a single Ythrian appears later in one Terran Empire novel, The Day Of Their Return. 

As the Earth Book completes the first part of Anderson's Technic History, another collection should complete the second part. I now suggest that that final collection should be entitled The Long Night And After. Since the nine Flandry period volumes are about delaying the Long Night, that collection title would inform readers that the Long Night will happen but will not be the end of the story. 

5 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

I am not sure I understand. Yes, Flandry and others like him struggled to postpone the fall of the Terran Empire, but we see him hoping, near the end of THE GAME OF EMPIRE, that it would survive another two centuries. I would prefer that final Technic collection be called THE POST-IMPERIAL ERA and include the original texts of the five stories Anderson thought necessary to revise.

Falling behind again, partly because I've been working on another article I hope you might upload here. It should be ready within a week.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

Your article will go on the blog provided I can handle the technicalities, of course.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Many thanks for your patience with me! I was old fashioned enough to first write out a long hand draft, coming to 12 pages, before starting copying/revising it into the computer. Very labor intensive!

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,

Either I'll copy and paste it from email as I've done before I'll get help from Mike, my sort of son-in-law, who put the Hord links on for me.

Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Got it, many thanks!

Ad astra! Sean