SAGA, Volumes I-III

Collecting eleven instalments, including one novel, The Technic Civilization Saga, Volume I, The Van Rijn Method is long and comprehensive enough to count as a single volume future history in its own right although as such it would have been somewhat lop-sided since eight of its instalments, including the novel, are set during the lifetimes of a single set of characters. Indeed, those characters, van Rijn etc, remain alive throughout the seven instalments, including another novel, collected in Volume II, David Falkayn: Star Trader, and are last seen in the opening instalment, also a novel, in Volume III, Rise Of The Terran Empire, whose title alone is sufficient to inform readers of the Saga that at last this future history series is about to move beyond the lifetimes of van Rijn, Falkayn etc. 

OK. Poul Anderson's History of Technic Civilization is my favourite hobby horse and I have been moved to post about it yet again instead of going to bed at a reasonable hour. Back here at breakfast, maybe.