Their cross-references make clear that "The Star Plunderer" and "Sargasso of Lost Starships" were written as a pair. They were published in the same year, 1952, and in reverse order, "Sargasso..." in January and "...Plunderer" in September. Their Solar Empire is not yet necessarily identical with the Terran Empire defended by Dominic Flandry from January 1951 - all of this happening in
Planet Stories. The Commonwealth that had collapsed to be replaced by the Solar Empire is not yet to be identified with the Solar Commonwealth that coexists with the Polesotechnic League. Indeed, in Nicholas van Rijn's first appearance in "Margin of Profit" in
Analog, September 1956, the League coexists with a Solar Federation, requiring subsequent textual revision.
"The Chapter Ends" is a questionable culmination of Poul Anderson's Psychotechnic History and in fact refers both to the First Empire and to Sol City, two references that it shares with the fictional introduction to "...Plunderer." This generates a potential "First Empire" series:
"The Star Plunderer"
"Sargasso of Lost Starships"
"The Chapter Ends"
We have to remember that texts are artefacts and that there was a time before they had settled down into fixed patterns.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
These were very early stories by Anderson, written at a time when both the Dominic Flandry stories and the Psychotechnic Institute series had not yet taken form. And nearly ten years before that impulsive mention of Polesotechnarch van Rijn in THE PLAGUE OF MASTERS.
Ad astra! Sean
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