Tuesday 20 February 2024

The League Returns

Poul Anderson's sf novel, Mirkheim:

describes the first civil war in the Polesotechnic League - a conflict, furthermore, that initiates the beginning of the end of the League; 

is the concluding volume of Anderson's Polesotechnic League Tetralogy where it is preceded by two collections, Trader To The Stars and The Trouble Twisters, and by one previous novel, Satan's World;

in terms of fictional chronology, is the last instalment in the Polesotechnic League sub-series of Anderson's major future history series, the History of Technic Civilization;

is followed first by the novel, The People Of The Wind, set centuries later in a different volume of space, and secondly by The Earth Book Of Stormgate, an omnibus collection compiled, in terms of the fictional chronology, shortly after the events of The People Of The Wind.

This third novel and third collection constitute an "Ythrian" diptych that is the second main section of the Technic History after the aforementioned Polesotechnic League Tetralogy.

Someone who has consecutively read through the Tetralogy, The People Of The Wind and the two opening Ythrian short stories in the Earth Book could be forgiven for thinking that by now he has left the Polesotechnic League far behind in both space and time. However, if he has appreciated:

the League
Nicholas van Rijn
David Falkayn
Coya Conyon/Falkayn
the trader team
the planets, Ivanhoe and Mirkheim
two of the many alien races, the Baburites and the Merseians

- then he might be not only surprised but also pleased to learn that all of these return in the Earth Book which, fictitiously, is compiled later but nevertheless collects stories set earlier. 

Indeed, the Tetralogy contains six stories and two novels about the League whereas the Earth Book contains seven stories and one novel about the League. Thus, this single volume presents an entire second League series plus a lot more information about human-Ythrian interactions. However, we at last leave the League behind and must instead focus first on the Ythrian Domain and then, more significantly, on the Terran Empire in conflict with the Merseian Roidhunate. A future history, indeed.

6 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

One serious lack, of course, is that we have no Young Nick stories, tales set during the youth of Nicholas van Rijn, as he was beginning his rise to vast wealth and legendary fame/infamy. Nothing like the three Young Flandry novels we do fortunately have.

Ad astra! Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

And THE TROUBLE TWISTERS is a "Young Falkayn" Trilogy.

S.M. Stirling said...

I've always found the fall of the League sort of implausibly -fast-. I think it was shoehorned in later.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!

Paul: That too, but Old Nick and Dominic Flandry were both more interesting to me than David Falkayn.

Mr. Stirling: Once you pointed that out, some time ago, I agreed. The beginning of the disintegration of the League does seem a bit too rushed. Something like MIRKHEIM would more plausibly had been set 25 years later than it was in the Technic timeline. I think Anderson "timed" it as he did to make sure Nicholas van Rijn could play an active role in the story. Even with antisenescence, an Old Nick aged 105 being as active as we see him in MIRKHEIM might have been a strain to accept!

Ad astra! Sean

S.M. Stirling said...

Sean: yes, that's my take too.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

It does make me wonder, what might this alternate MIRKHEIM had been like if Anderson had set it 25 years later?

Ad astra! Sean