the owner of Solar Spice & Liquors, the biggest independent company in the Polesotechnic League;
father of Eric Tamarin-Asmundsen, heir apparent to the Grand Duchy of Hermes;
grandfather of Coya Falkayn;
"...the single-handed conqueror of Borthu, t'Kela and Diomedes!"
-Poul Anderson. "The Master Key" IN Anderson, David Falkayn: Star Trader (Riverdale, NY, March 2010), pp. 273-327 AT p. 281.
In recent posts, we have compared Poul Anderson's Technic History not only with Isaac Asimov's Foundation, James Blish's Cities in Flight and Robert Heinlein's Future History but also with Anderson's own Psychotechnic History. It is almost unique for an sf writer to contribute not just one but several future history series. In fact, Blish wrote more than one but not on the same scale as Anderson.
9 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
It's also my belief Anderson's Technic series was better than those of the other writers you listed. And better than his Psychotechnic stories.
Ad astra! Sean
Agreed.
Kaor, Paul!
I like best THE SNOWS OF GANYMEDE and VIRGIN PLANET of all the Psychotechnic stories. And "The Big Rain" fascinates me, for giving us an example of how Venus might be terraformed. Jerry Pournelle's article, using the same name, gave updated speculations on how that might be done.
Ad astra! Sean
Given the time spans Anderson chose to play with, presumably most of the PsychT and PoloT stories could have been "fixed" up ... the Stellar Union's problems during the era of interstellar exploration and human expansion could slot into the "history" of the Solar Commonwealth, with the loose Commonwealth being the final stages of a Stellar Union weakened by the wealth of the PoloT and the PoloT merchants being the inheritors of the "nomadic" factions of the PsychT.
The two series are incompatible in many details. The Psychotechnic History has World War III in the 20th century. Post-War recovery involves a UN world government whereas the Technic History still has separate countries in the early 21st century.
Hence the "fix-up" ... worked for Asimov, right? ;)
Sure, the earlier PsychT stories (in terms of the fictional time they are set in) don't really fit, but the later ones could pretty easily. The themes are interesting counterpoints, as you have mentioned.
Kaor, David/Aonymous!
I disagree, far better, as Anderson did to keep the Psycotechnic and Technic series separate. They are too different to be merged together without doing violence to both.
And Asimov did a terrible job, IMO, trying to splice together his
Robot and Foundation series.
Ad astra! Sean
Sure, but money, presumably, won out. ;)
Kaor, Dave!
Unfortunately, for the artistic and literary quality of Asimov's works!
Ad astra! Sean
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