Trader To The Stars And The Technic Civilization Saga

Three Introductions shows how effectively Trader To The Stars works as a Volume I for Poul Anderson's Technic History even though it has subsequently been superseded in that role by The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume I, The Van Rijn Method. Trader To The Stars introduces the Polesotechnic League with three stories about Nicholas van Rijn, each preceded by a newly written informative and/or evocative introduction. However, Trader... has skipped past:

three pre-League instalments;

three earlier van Rijn instalments;

one Adzel instalment;

two David Falkayn instalments;

one sequel to the first Falkayn instalment -

- leaving these ten items to be collected in later volumes. The Technic Civilization Saga rearranges the series into chronological order of fictional events with the result that the three stories in Trader... become the last of eleven in Volume I and the first and fourth of seven in Volume II, each still preceded by its Trader... introduction. Trader To The Stars effectively ceases to exist as a separate entity although I think that it remains a good collection with a good beginning, middle and end. Van Rijn's hand chops down in scorn at the very end of the third story... Of course that still happens when the story is collected in the Saga but it no longer comes right at the end of a volume. Both ways of presenting the Technic History deserve to be preserved.