"Day of Burning" is collected in Volume II;
Mirkheim is in Volume III;
the Flandry period is in Volumes IV-VII.
Thus, Merseians appear in every volume but I.
Why are Merseians not even mentioned in any of the four post-Imperial instalments collected at the end of Volume VII? These stories focus on the shorter- and longer-term consequences for human societies of the fall of the Terran Empire. They marginally refer to non-human sophonts but make no specific mention of Merseians, Ythrians, Wodenites, Cynthians etc. Anderson did state in his SFWA Bulletin article that it would have been interesting to know what had become of other rational species but the main point of the Technic History had been made so why continue with it? I think that it would have been a good idea to continue with it. That main point was that, if societies make wrong decisions, then they decline through empirically discernible stages. (Arguably.)
Chunderban Desai speculates that the Merseians might also be decadent although it would be difficult to know what this would mean for another species. They certainly suffer many blows to their morale at the hands of Flandry and some of his contemporaries and successors.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
That makes sense, we see no mention of the Merseians or any non-human species by name in the four post-Imperial stories because they focused on the shorter/longer term consequences, for humans, on the fall of the Terran Empire.
And I took some grim satisfaction in Tachwyr's discouragement!
Ad astra! Sean
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