Versions

We know from the Bible, Greek and Hindu mythology and screen adaptations of prose fiction that stories can exist in more than one version. (The first thing that we were told about Ganesh when visiting a nearby Hindu Temple was: "There is more than one version of the story.") We also know that sometimes two different versions of a single story are equally good and even that an adaptation can be an improvement although usually not. I was reminded of this when visiting the bookshop to enquire about The Technic Civilization Saga. Pierre Boule, author of The Bridge Over The River Kwai, wrote a single sf novel, La Planete de Singes, which was translated as Monkey Planet and filmed as Planet of the Apes. That title became a multi-author franchise with no less than seven continuities:

the original novel

a series of five feature films followed by a body of continuation prose fiction

a live action TV series

an animated TV series

an atrocious Marvel comic

a one-off feature film

a second feature film series

I would not want any fictional scenario originated by Poul Anderson to go through that many metamorphoses. However, there is scope for different continuities. Some Technic History instalments were revised and therefore exist in two versions. Anderson's Kith future history has two versions:

three short stories that could be collected as Kith;

the long novel, Starfarers, which incorporates altered versions of two of the three stories but has a very different ending.

Thus, there could be two screen adaptations.

I find it easier to imagine additional instalments of the Polesotechnic League series than to envisage a different continuity but that can be done. There has been combox discussion on this blog suggesting that the League should not have declined so rapidly during van Rijn's active lifetime.