Thursday 13 June 2024

Numbers Of Instalments, Including Novels

Although the Polesotechnic League series comprises sixteen instalments, including three novels, this series is only two thirds of the first of the two parts of Poul Anderson's Technic History. In this first part, there are a further eight instalments, three pre-League, five post -, including one novel. In The Technic Civilization Saga, the first part of the History culminates in The People Of The Wind at the end of Volume III, Rise Of The Terran Empire, whereas, in the original reading order, the first part culminates in Hloch's Afterword to The Earth Book Of Stormgate. Fictitiously, the Earth Book is compiled after the events of The People Of The Wind. Thus, there are two equally valid end points to the first part of the History. The second part of the Technic History comprises fifteen instalments, including seven novels, set during the Flandry period followed by four instalments, including one novel, covering the post-Imperial periods. Thus, this second part, consisting of fewer but mostly longer instalments, fills Volumes IV-VII of the Saga.

The total number of novels, twelve, is outstanding and can be increased if we count as novels the three Dominic Flandry instalments that are shorter than any of the novels listed here but that were nevertheless long enough to be reissued as single volumes between their original magazine appearances and their eventual, more permanent, inclusion in Technic History collections.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And of course we both know of how Anderson revised or incorporated in a longer story five of the Technic stories. "The White King's War" became the first part of A CIRCUS OF HELLS.

Ad astra! Sean