Companion Volumes And A Sequel Of Prequels

Poul Anderson's The People Of The Wind, a novel, and his The Earth Book Of Stormgate, an omnibus collection, are companion volumes. Hloch's fictional introduction to the Earth Book, referring to places and institutions on Avalon and to the effects of the Terran War, is a direct continuation from the text of the novel. After that war, Hloch had visited Imperial planets as a member of a merchant crew before returning to Avalon. Thus, a certain amount of time has elapsed. Hloch's twelve introductions and single afterword constitute a sequel to The People Of The Wind. However, the twelve works that Hloch introduces are all set earlier than that novel. Thus, the Earth Book is a sequel of prequels. It carries its readers a short distance forward in time but also fills in a considerable amount of the Technic History's fictional past.

First, Hloch, an Ythrian, introduces two human accounts of early contact with Ythrians. This is how it all began, as it were. Secondly, we are surprised and pleased to encounter familiar characters from the Polesotechnic League, having already read their swan song in the earlier novel, Mirkheim. Finally, two accounts of the human-Ythrian colonization of Avalon bring us as close as possible to the situation that had existed at the beginning of The People Of The Wind - although the Terran Empire still has to be founded and to grow before the plot of the novel can take off!

We read about Falkayns and a Holm on Avalon: ancestors of characters in the novel. At last, there is a sense of completion - although there are still another ten volumes in the Technic History!