proto-Nomads on Harbor;
a few human beings among the natives on Khazak;
Wilson Pete and his relatives on Nerthus;
a Coordinator on Nerthus and the women on Atlantis;
Weber among the natives somewhere else.
"The Pirate," written over a decade later and much more sophisticated, starts on Earth of that period and then shows us a Coordinator on a mission to a depopulated planet. We will reread "The Pirate" but not immediately.
The characters show us that they are in the same history mainly when they swear by Cosmos and place their surnames before their personal names! There are a few other connectors like Nerthus, the Coordination Service and references to the Galaxy as a whole. The series could have been continued indefinitely merely by adding more planets.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
But I don't know how much more could have been made of the Psychotechnic series given Anderson's increasing dissatisfaction with it.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Agreed. This series was not going to go much further. The more general point is that any series with each instalment set on a different planet can be extended indefinitely by adding more planets - or by visiting more planets, as in STAR TREK.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
The Psychotechnic timeline was a learning experience for Anderson. At a minimum it gave him practice in how better to write a long series of stories sharing a common history. It also shows us Anderson examining and discarding ideas he came to disagree with, such as the respect he once for the farce called the United Nations.
Ad astra! Sean
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