The Fourth Instalments

Comparing our four parallel future histories, as I now think of them, we notice that the Technic History has progressed further by its fourth instalment than any of the other three have by theirs.

The Future History

DD Harriman, still on Earth, has sent a man to the Moon and back.

The Psychotechnic History

Earthmen have colonised Mars and Venus.

Known Space

An explorer has reached Pluto.

The Technic History

When the story opens, Nicholas van Rijn is on Earth but Earth is part of an interstellar civilization and van Rijn is a leading figure in the interstellar economy.

In its original reading order, the Technic History began with a collection of three stories about van Rijn, leaving no less than ten instalments set earlier, three of them also about van Rijn, to be collected later. The first story about van Rijn opens the sixteen-instalment sub-series about the Polesotechnic League in which van Rijn has solo adventures and also brings together the independently introduced characters, David Falkayn and Adzel, into his first trade pioneer crew. By imperceptible increments, Poul Anderson builds a substantial structure.