(One of my granddaughter's half-brothers has written a fantasy novel so I will take some time to read that.)
All twelve Technic History instalments collected in Poul Anderson's The Earth Book Of Stormgate are set earlier than his novel, The People Of The Wind, although the Earth Book itself is fictitiously compiled shortly after the events of that novel so that the chronologically last event in the pre-Flandry period of the Technic History is the Earth Book editor, Hloch, writing his commentaries on the collected instalments although in The Technic Civilzation Saga, Hloch's afterword comes before the two stories that precede The People Of The Wind.
11 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I like well done fantasies, by writers such as Tolkien and Anderson. Examples from the latter's works being the two OPERATION books, THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS, HROLF KRAKI'S SAGA, and A MIDSUMMER TEMPEST. Plus the short stories collected in FANTASY. An esp. intriguing example in that book being "Superstition."
So I hope this new book you are reading lives up to such high standards!
Ad astra! Sean
It won't.
Kaor, Paul!
Dang, that's a pity. Some people might think writing a story should be easy, but it isn't!
Ad astra! Sean
Some writers seem able to write interesting and entertaining stories with what looks like effortless ease. Others really struggle to express what they "see," endlessly correcting and revising their work. And I am sure it's not easy for the first kind of writer I mentioned.
Ad astra! Sean
Talents are unevenly distributed. There are plenty of things I'm lousy at -- I'd make a terrible politician and I was a sub-par lawyer, for example.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
That surprises me, that you would think so poorly of your abilities as a politician. You write so knowingly and shrewdly about politics in your stories, both as theory and how you demonstrated what successful politicians need to do if they wanted to govern well. Or at least to prosper!
Ad astra! Sean
Portraying something and doing something are two different things. People in the SCA tell me Poul was a dub at swordwork, for example.
Most of us can analyse and criticise a book but not write one.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I can see that: theoretical understanding is one thing, but the actual ability to "do" something is a very different matter.
I have read of how Sir Bela of Eastmarch, for all his enthusiasm, was a flop at using swords!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: exactly. But it probably helped Poul do realistic descriptions of sword-fighting. Note that story where Flandry is kidnapped by the barbarian prince -- and the first and then rewritten versions of it. The sword-duel climax is much more realistic in the second version!
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Because some of that scientific study of fencing mentioned by Flandry enabled Anderson to be more in describing that duel of Flandry with Cerdic.
Ad astra! Sean
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