Poul Anderson's The Earth Book of Stormgate collects twelve prose narratives of different lengths, including one novel. These are twelve of the forty-three instalments of Anderson's Technic History, which is sf.
Alan Moore's and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen collects all twelve instalments of the monthly Watchmen superhero comic book series. Superheroes, an off-shoot of sf, is a hybrid genre also containing elements of action-adventure and fantasy although there is no fantasy in Watchmen.
In the Technic History, mankind survives the Chaos and Technic civilization is born. In Watchmen, mankind avoids an imminent nuclear war and a new age of peace is possibly born.
In the Earth Book, each instalment gains a new introduction and there is a single short afterword. In Watchmen, instalments I-XI were each followed by a prose piece and these are reproduced in the collection.
Some slight structural similarities between two works, each a classic in its own medium.
14 comments:
Paul - Given some of your more recent posts, you may want to compare Anderson's 5-6 "after the fall" tales in his fictional history to the 5-6 "After the fall" tales in Piper's history; some interesting parallels ... the most significant one, perhaps, being how few each of them wrote in that setting, as opposed to the "earlier" eras in each.
Kaor, Dave!
That was largely because, after THE GAME OF EMPIRE, Anderson wanted to turn to other ideas and themes. Such as THE KING OF YS or THE BOAT OF A MILLION YEARS. He had said everything he wanted to say in the Technic stories, so it was time to move on.
That said, I would have loved it if he had written one or two more Technic stories!
Ad astra! Sean
Dave,
Anderson has only four post-Imperial stories. Too few.
Paul.
These four, I take it?
"A Tragedy of Errors,"
"The Sharing of Flesh,"
"The Night Face,"
"Starfog"
Piper (arguably) did the following stories set "after the fall" of his posited interstellar federation, although the middle two are illustrating a "new" imperium and the last is after that new state - sort of a "Starfog" equivalent, presumably:
"Space Viking,"
"A Slave is a Slave,"
"Ministry of Disturbance," and
"The Keeper"
The evolving "Graveyard of Dreams," "Junkyard Planet," and "The Cosmic Computer" are set on the edge (or in the earliest stages) of the collapse of the Federation, after the last great war but before the final collapse - which is a period that Anderson didn't really touch in his series.
Correct about Anderson.
Thanks. Could have sworn there was another one ...
Dave,
There is another story, "Memory," set after the fall of an interstellar empire but it is in a different timeline. I discussed it way back on this blog.
Paul.
That's probably it. Thanks.
Kaor, Paul and Dave!
"Memory" might have needed only some fairly slight revisions by Anderson to fit that story into the post-Imperial era of the Technic series. Out of perhaps 100 Sectors and more than 100,000 planets in the Empire we really see only a small number of both in the "extant records" from the Technic History.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean - True. Of course, he was doing this for a living and to support his family; as much fun as he obviously had creating and adding to the setting, it might have just come down to hitting a deadline and getting paid.
"It's just my job, five days a week ..." ;)
Kaor, Dave!
Of cousrse! But PA also enjoyed writing science fiction and fantasy.
Ad astra! Sean
Paul - Given the scale of the postings here, you may have addressed it, but does "The Longest Voyage" work as a post-collapse story?
Dave,
I don't think I've addressed that question on this blog. Sandra Miesel said in a letter to me that some readers think that "The Longest Voyage" fits in the Technic History but that it requires a different Earth.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
That interests me, Sandra Miesel writing to you! I still wonder what she would think of my revision (with some help from you) of her Chronology of Technic Civilization.
I agree with the skepticism she seems to have for the idea of including "The Longest Voyage" into the Technic timeline. It's best understood as a standalone story.
Miesel wrote the only formally pub. study of the works of Anderson I know of in English, AGAINST TIME'S ARROW: THE HIGH CRUSADE OF POUL ANDERSON (c. 1979). Pity it was never expanded and revises to include discussion of the stories Anderson wrote afterwards.
Ad astra! Sean
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